Police have increased their fight against road accidents, which have risen recently at an alarming rate. Leaves of absence for police personnel have been shortened in order to have more of them on traffic and road patrols. Increased preventive activities have also been put into effect.
These steps were taken as the country’s 42nd traffic accident victim in the past 15 days died. The latest victim, a 51-year-old woman resident of Kiryat Malachi, was fatally injured by a runaway truck on the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem highway. The truck apparently took a dangerous curve at a very high speed and crashed into a bus stop at which the woman had been standing.
While doctors, psychologists, physiologists, town planners, traffic engineers, teachers and many other experts from a multitude of fields have been seeking to explain the recent unusual number of read fatalities, Police Inspector-General David Kraus told a meeting of the National Police Command Sunday that “our job is not only to pick up the pieces after a fatal crash, but to rid the streets of accident-causing offenders.”
He told his staff to increase police presence on the highways and main city streets, issuing tickets and, if necessary, arresting offenders who swerve out of traffic lanes, pass irresponsibly, fail to use their directional signals, disregard stop and other signs, or speed.
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