Getting a Handle on Motor Vehicle Accidents

By Shai Malka

It is not only in Israel that the issue of car accidents is constantly in the background. In a world where traffic never ceases, car accidents have become one of the foremost causes of death.

The subject of car accidents in Israel has entered the public consciousness in the past few years. There are many reasons for this: the media has adopted the subject and reports every accident, the National Council for the Prevention of Car Accidents launched several extravagantly-funded campaigns, the activism of the “Green Light” NGO has gotten wide coverage and the government has likewise gotten involved. However, aside from 2009 when there was a drop in the number of fatalities on the nation’s roads, the transportation authorities in Israel cannot claim any achievements whatsoever.

Transportation Statistics in Israel

When attempting to analyze the data surrounding car accidents in Israel, we must take into consideration many difference factors, including: the number of cars on the road, the number of licensed drivers, the total length of all roads and the total mileage of all cars in Israel. When we take all these factors into account, we can see that traffic volume is constantly on the rise, while the number of fatalities is in a general trend of decline. These trends can be clearly seen in the following graph:

Causes of Accidents in Israel

Experts are divided as to the exact number of accidents in Israel caused by human error, but all agree without a doubt that this is the main cause. The previous CEO of the National Authority for Travel Safety, Yair Dori, estimated in an interview with Haaretz that 95% of all car accidents are precipitated by human error, while 3-4% are caused by infrastructure problems, and the rest are caused by technological mishaps. In that same interview, Dori added that, “The long term battle plan against car accidents needs to be centered on education. If we ignore this and we don’t want to deal with the core issues and only engage in fear mongering and deterrence, this will never bring change.”

Official statistics released by the National Authority for Travel Safety point to the complications in determining the cause of an accident. It is not always possible to establish a definite cause in an accident. Data released by the Authority in 2010 suggest that 90-95% of all accidents are caused by human error, with 25-30% from infrastructural causes, and 5-10% from mechanical problems. The data do not add up to 100% as at times several different causes are responsible for one accident.

The Price of Car Accidents

Aside from the loss of life, which has no price, car accidents bring with them astronomical costs to the Israeli economy for which we all pay via mandatory car insurance.

In 2004, research conducted by the Matat Institute on behalf of the Transportation Ministry was published. The results of the research showed that between 2000-2002, the average annual cost of all car accidents in Israel was 12.6 billion shekels, which accounts fo 2.5% of the GDP. If we consider this figure in relation to the number of people in Israel, the costs round off to about 1,880 shekels a year for every citizen. (This is approximately the amount that every driver pays for his mandatory car insurance.) According to the research, the costs comprise the following:

Even though the number of annual fatalities is on a down trend, the cost of accidents to the economy keeps rising every year. In 2007, Green Light published a report according to which the cost of car accidents to Israeli economy was 16 billion NIS, including 8.44 billion in direct damages to injured persons covered by mandatory insurance.

Comparison to the Global Situation

Every year, 450 people are killed in car accidents in Israel on average. Seemingly, the number of fatalities per 100,000 in Israel is smaller as compared with other countries in the OECD. Nevertheless, we should note that the number of cars per thousand persons is 50% smaller in Israel than the European average. (230 private vehicles per 1,000 persons in Israel, as compared with 500 private vehicles per 1,000 persons on average in Europe). When we weigh the number of fatalities in car accidents in relation to the number of vehicles, Israel places as the worst among all European countries.

Dr. Yair Weissman, a transportation expert from Bar Ilan University, has shown us statistics according to which a quick comparison with the situation in the United States shows that in Israel, there are 17,686 kilometers of road compared with 6,430,351 kilometers in the US. The number of fatalities due to car accidents in Israel stands at 1,950 from 2005-2009, and in the US during the same time period, the number is 198,708. Meaning, during these years, in Israel 0.11 people were killed for every kilometer of road, while in the US, only .03 were killed during this time.

Furthermore, the price of gasoline, cars, and car parts in the US are substantially cheaper than in Israel, and therefore car use is more common in the US (thus the number of fatalities should seemingly rise). It is worthwhile to take into account an additional statistic that has an effect on the relatively small number of fatalities in the US: the vehicle density in relation to the total amount of road space – whereas the amount of road for each vehicle in the US is 25.2 kilometers per vehicle, in Israel that number stands at 7.4 kilometers per vehicle.

Indeed, when we check the relationship between the number of fatalities and the number of vehicles, we see less significantly less dramatic differences when comparing different countries: In the years 2005-2009, 1.288 people were killed in Israel for every thousand vehicles, compared with 1.266 in the US in the same time period.

The current insurance setup in Israel

The issue of car accidents is inextricably connected to the awareness of drivers that they will have to pay for the results of their actions. Mandatory car insurance is an obligation stemming from law. The insurance system in Israel is that of “no fault,” and is intended to provide protection for drivers who have been injured in any sort of accident regardless of the question of fault. This system is considered to be extremely socialist at its core. The glaring shortcoming of this system is the near automatic equalization of the guilty and innocent parties involved. For all intents and purposes, the guilty driver is classified as the injured party and is awarded damages. An additional shortcoming is that punishment is imposed on breaking the law and not on the gravity of the infraction and its consequences. It turns out that that as long as there is a criminal element – in which the State sues the offending driver – there will never be a direct connection of responsibility between the offending driver and the victim.

Lately, there have been calls in the judicial realm for minor changes in compensation laws for car accident victims. The law states that the victim sues his insurance company – he can no longer sue any other party responsible for the accident, either directly or indirectly. This type of implementation of the no fault policy is considered extreme, whereas in other insurance systems, the degree of responsibility of each party for the accident has an influence on the results of the case.

Other insurance possibilities exist that expose the offender to damage claims made by the victim. This type of setup forces him to deal directly with the consequences of his actions. The principle of exposing the offender to damage claims stands at the core of the suggested reform.

Proposal to Reform the Mandatory insurance system

The proposed reform is based on the substantive Jewish principles according to which full responsibility rests on the driver for his actions, and he is required to pay for the damage in accordance with the level of his negligence. We propose that in the event of an accident, the insurance company will pay the victim the full extent of the damages, after which, when the level of negligence of the offending driver is determined through a judicial process, the insurance company will have the right to sue the offender for the amount they were forced to pay due to his negligence. This process is accepted by insurance companies with regard to everything having to do with monetary damages and is known as subrogation. The result being that the victim will not be further hurt, and he will immediately receive the damages he requires (as the situation is today), though at the end of the process, the money will come from the pocket of the negligent party.

As it stands today, insurance serves as a dividing wall between the offending driver and the consequences of his actions, drawn from the assumption that the responsibility for these sort of consequences is too much to bear. This view hides the true meaning of driving and its dangers, and causes us, as drivers, to feel at ease while driving. Our proposal is that insurances should fully cover all damage costs of the victim, but should only serve to protect the offender in the event that his has a right to that protection, that being strictly in proportion to his innocence.

In this situation the compensation paid by the offending driver will be graded according to the extent of his negligence. For example, if the offending driver did nothing out of the norm and suddenly something went wrong and caused an accident, we can absolve him of responsibility and excuse him from any payment. In this type of case the insurance company will have to completely cover the damages. There is no doubt that a person’s responsibility for an accident can be viewed on a gradient; it is not a clear dichotomy of guilty or innocent. The traffic courts must determine the extent of his negligence and the offending driver will pay the insurance company accordingly.

If the offending driver cannot pay the damages, the court can confiscate his assets or use other methods at its disposal today. Additionally, the state will allow the offending drive to take out a mortgage specifically for the purpose of paying his victim.

The insurance comptroller will supervise the insurance policies to ensure that no policy automatically and completely covers a driver for damages that he may cause.

This proposal will significantly reduce the cost of mandatory insurance for all drivers and will fairly re-distribute the economic burden that we all carry today.

When dealing with such a painful issue, we cannot suggest an ideal proposal, for ideally, there would be no traffic accidents at all. But although the reality depicted in this proposal is not ideal, it more accurately represents the measure of damage caused. When these damages must be paid by the driver responsible for them, they will be forced to deal with the consequences of their driving. This will certainly change Israel’s driving culture for the better.

As the responsibility on the driver increases, the feeling that “it can’t happen to me” will be replaced by the feeling that “it can also happen to me.” This change will improve the driving culture of many Israelis.