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JCC 1997-1998 Encore Series presents:
Internationally
natty Renowned Author
Joseph
Telushkin
"Words That Hurt, Words That Heat:
Using Words Wiseiy"
Sunday, April 19, 1998
7:00 p.m.
Jewish Community Center
of Metropolitan Detroit
D. Dan and Betty Kahn Building
Tickets:
$5 for JCC members
$8 for non-members
For tickets and information call:
(248) 661-7649 West Bloomfield or
(248) 967-4030 Oak Park.
Co-sponsored 6y Adat Shalom Synagogue and the CORE department of the Jewish
Federation of Metropolitan Detroit. Funded in part 6y the Manny and Natalie
Charach Endowment for the Cultural Arts, the Irwin and Sadie Cohn Fund,
the DeRoy Testamentary Foundation, Congregation Shaarey Zedek, Eiltt v' Ella
and the Boaz Siegel Culture Fund. Accommodations provided by the
DoubleTree Suites in Southfield.
Also, enjoy the Israeli Art Expressions exhibit and
sale in the West Bloomfield lobby, April 19-26.
4/17
1998
38
Mioloa 400m.1. Co..*
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111-1S. IMO
The World
Elihu D. Richter, head of the Unit
for Occupational and Environmental
Medicine at Hebrew University-
Hadassah Hospital's School of
Medicine, and probably Israel's lead-
ing critic of traffic safety policy
Moreover, Israeli motorcyclists are
commonly thought of as suicide jock-
eys, but in fact are among the world's
most obedient and law-abiding when
it comes to wearing helmets, Richter
noted.
"If you [take] an Israeli driver
[and] let him drive on a roomy,
eight-lane interstate from Nevada to
New Mexico, he'll be no less polite
than anyone else," said Moukhwas.
"But here in Israel, which has among
the most crowded roads in the world,
drivers turn into jungle cats fighting
for survival."
Another popular myth is that traf-
fic deaths keep going up in Israel year
after year. In fact, the death toll for
1997 — just more than 500 — was
about 200 fewer than the average
annual figure in the mid-1970s,
when there were about one-tenth as
many vehicles on the roads as there
are today. The figure fell to belgim
400 in 1985, then began climbing
again.
"The number of road deaths has
been going up in recent years because
the number of vehicles and kilome-
ters driven has been increasing
tremendously — by 5-10 percent a
year. But the true indicator — the
rate of deaths per number of vehicles
or per kilometers driven — has been
going down," said the Transport
Ministry's Dr. Dan Link, one of
Israel's most influential traffic safety
experts.
Perhaps the Israeli mentality, such
as it is, may explain why so many
people here are convinced that this
country has the worst traffic death
rate in the world. In a study pub-
lished last year based on road death
statistics from 52 countries — main-
ly developed ones — Link found
that Israel had the 1-6th "best," or
lowest, death rate per kilometers dri-
ven. (Sweden was lowest, England
second-lowest.) In deaths per vehi-
cles, Israel ranked 23rd. In deaths
per traffic injuries, Israel ranked
fourth-lowest.
The experts also challenge other
myths. Truck drivers are allegedly
major scofflaws, but Richter main-
tains the problem lies with their
employers: A study he did of 160
truckers found that nearly half said
their bosses required them to drive
more than 12 hours a day, and more
than 30 percent admitted falling
asleep at the wheel.
There is also a belief that high
fines would cut down on reckless dri-
ving, but Moukhwas insists it's
enforcement, not fines, that would
help. (Israel has relatively few traffic
police, so violators are not often
caught.)
And another old traffic myth, one
believed by more than a few Israeli
men, is that of the incompetent
"woman driver." The truth is that
killing people on the road is essential-
ly a "guy thing."
"Women drivers take much fewer
risks, they're much less likely to drive
recklessly, and they're much more
hesitant about driving in dangerous
conditions. You're not going to see
many women driving through the
Negev Desert at 2 a.m," noted
Mo ukhwas.
In a look at 52
countries, Israel
has the 16th
lowest death rate
of drivers.
Yaffa Bichovsky, a social worker
and probation officer in Tel Aviv who
counsels drivers convicted of negli-
gently killing people on the road,
agrees. Roughly 200 killer drivers
have visited her office over the last
eight years, and about 90 percent are
men, she said.
Perhaps the most dangerous myths \
of all is that road crashes and deaths
are just something Israelis have to live
with. Other countries don't buy into
the same philosophy. The Australian
state of Victoria cut its annual traffic
death toll in half — from about 800
to 400 — in one year. Sweden has
adopted a program called "Vision
Zero," which starts from the premise_/
that it is actually possible to cut trafc_ \
fic fatalities to zero, and takes that as
its goal.
So maybe it is possible to change
that Israeli mentality, or at least its
mythology. "Don't call traffic deaths
`accidents'," Richter emphasizes.
"They are not accidents."
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