Our God and God of our ancestors … Help me to drive with care, to keep a proper distance … to yield the right of way; with awareness, to stop in time.”
This prayer is part of an effort by the Masorti, or Conservative, movement in Israel to compile a new prayer book that will better reflect the realities of daily life in Israel.
And when it comes to life — and death — on Israeli roads, those realities can be grim.
According to figures recently released by the Central Bureau of Statistics, someone is injured in a traffic accident in Israel every 14.5 minutes.
The bureau also provided some additional, sobering statistics: Every two hours, a pedestrian is hit by a car; every two hours, a child is hurt in a traffic accident; every 16 hours, a person dies in a traffic accident.
Over longer periods of time, these statistics create a particularly troubling picture.
The death toll on Israeli roads nearly equals the number of dead from all of Israel’s wars: more than 18,000.
Most of us go out on the road in cars, and the roads in Israel are dangerous,” said Conservative Rabbi Michael Graetz, who composed the driver’s prayer.
Graetz said he did not see his new prayer as a replacement for the traditional Prayer for the Road, but rather as a relevant addition.
Israel places human life above all else, and goes into mourning over every victim of terrorist attacks and military conflicts but the rising death toll caused by traffic accidents seems to be accepted as a fact of life.
It is true that every year or so, a new traffic safety campaign is launched with big fanfare.
Nevertheless, the number of road accidents keeps increasing, and with it the number of dead, maimed and injured.
Explanations for this tragic situation vary, yet there seems to be a consensus that the growing number of cars and the dismal conditions of most Israeli roads are the leading causes of traffic accidents.
Experts speak about the suicidal risk-taking tendencies of many Israeli drivers, a situation the experts blame on a number of disparate factors, including the effects of Holocaust memories, wars and terrorist attacks.
A number of rabbis have even gone so far as to suggest that the rising toll of road accident is due to the lack of proper religious observances among secular Israelis.
Past safety campaigns have stationed badly wrecked cars alongside roads as a warning to drivers. But it didn’t work.
“Singing for Life,” a national safety campaign, yielded similarly disappointing results.
Recently the police tried a new measure: the use of speed traps. The traps deterred few Israelis from speeding, and the approach failed to lessen accident statistics.
Another widely publicized recent measure called on back seat passengers to fasten their safety belts.
Despite this measure, one commonly sees passengers, as well as drivers, riding along with unbuckled seat belts.
Legislative attempts aimed at improving road safety have fared equally poorly.
The recent bill calling for a national campaign against road accidents did not pass its first legislative hurdle in the Knesset.
The bill, with support that crossed party lines, was signed by 89 Knesset members. Yet despite its parliamentary popularity, the bill was strongly opposed by the Finance Ministry, non-governmental experts and by a ministerial committee on legislation.
The bill called for a beefing up of the national traffic police force, periodic tests for advanced drivers and expanding the responsibilities of the Transport Ministry’s Road Safety Administration.
Finance Ministry officials, explaining their opposition, said enacting the measures would cost Israeli taxpayers $400 million annually.
Knesset member Tzachi Hanegbi said during debate over the bill, “This was supposed to be a day of celebration, a day of unity, in which the entire Knesset stands together to save the life of one Israeli citizen. The war on road accidents is not a political issue.”
Labor Knesset member Raanan Cohen, chairman of a group opposing the bill, countered: “Human life is the supreme value for all of us.
“And yet, the bill proposed is only increasing the bureaucracy and offers another white elephant that will serve as a stage for personal struggles, and will not help in the war against road accidents.”
In the end, a compromise was reached under which parts of the bill — such as a requirement calling for young drivers to be accompanied by more experienced motorists — would be passed in the near future.
The more controversial parts of the bill, particularly those that require considerable government funding, will be put before the Knesset Economics Committee with the recommendation that some compromise be found.
B. Michael, a well-known columnist and political satirist who often wields his pen against the Road Safety Authority, opined in a recent article in the Israeli daily Yediot.
According to Michael, the Israeli police force is already overworked and should be exempt from the task of ensuring road safety.
Instead, he suggested, the task should be assigned to three authorities: the Ministry of Construction, which will have the responsibility for improving road and safety conditions; the Ministry of Transportation, which should establish different curricula for the education of drivers; and the Ministry of Education, which would instill even in young schoolchildren an awareness of road safety.
Michael concluded that even with the implementation of these measures, it would take many years before any positive results would begin to appear.
Until then, Israelis may do well to heed the words of the new Conservative prayer:
“Give me the courage to control my impulses of jealousy, competition, anger and greed. Let there by no accident because of me, and let me not encounter disaster.”
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