Road accidents are a plague in Israel. Between 2003 and 2008 there were 2,792 fatalities on the country's roads, and an estimated 40,000 people injured.
Above and beyond the personal suffering of all the families involved in death and injury on the roads, the cost of treating injuries, and the fact that many of those injured, and sometimes their close relatives, are forced to leave work for an extended period of time, causes huge harm to the economy. Research conducted by Israel's Ministry of Transport found that the cost to the economy between 2000-2002 was NIS 12.6 billion, about 2.5% of GDP.
Over the past five years there has been a significant change in dealing with the problem, from education through to ads encouraging proper behavior and onto expanding the traffic police and increased enforcement.
Alongside these important measures, I think technology should be used as an additional tool for reducing road accidents and the carnage on Israel's roads. Anybody who has visited the UK in recent years can see that drivers have become more law abiding.
The main reason is that speed cameras and counters have been placed every few miles. These instruments have enabled the traffic police in the UK to focus on other illegal behavioral habits of drivers.
This is an optimization of resources. In Israel there are speed cameras and traffic light cameras in only a very small number of roads and junctions. Technology today allows Israel to set up a network of cameras blanketing the entire country and reduce the number of serious accidents by dozens of percentage points within a relatively short period of time.
It is clear that the cost of setting up such a network would amount to hundreds of millions of dollars. Nevertheless, I think that such a network would be self-financing within a few years, when taking into consideration the significant increase in fines that will be imposed on dangerous drivers.
More important than that, the behavior of drivers would change, and as a result the number of accidents would be reduced and consequently the financial savings to the economy would be vast.
In the UK the number of people killed or seriously injured in road accidents has fallen by 42%! The savings to the UK economy as a result of the first stage of the new program amounted to ₤250 million annually.
In Israel 60 new cameras will be added in the first stage of a new digital plan. This is a golden opportunity to adopt the British model and use the income generated to expand the plan and cover the entire country's highways with cameras.
Furthermore, in Israel today there are several companies developing equipment for preventing accidents based on technologies involving radar and miniature computers, rather like the AWACS systems on aircraft. Perhaps the government should obligate the instillation of these systems on all new vehicles.
If the government really does not have the resources to set up a national network for monitoring traffic then maybe the solution is a BOT tender which will enable a company in the private sector to build such a network.
I am convinced that cameras could cover all of Israel's highways within a year, and that this is the most effective way to fight road accidents, which are so painful for all of us.
The writer is CEO of NetVision 013 Ltd.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on November 30, 2009
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