Driven to the brink

Two letter writers recently complained about the recklessness of Israeli drivers compared to Australians (“Driving us crazy,” April 12). Road death statistics however do not entirely support this complaint. In equivalent recent years the number of road deaths normalized to population is about 20% higher in Australia.

One of the factors is probably that the Aussies love to drink and drive. It is dangerous to be out there on a Saturday night. On a personal anecdotal level, I’ve driven many thousands of miles in the USA, Canada, Australia and Israel and my only brush with death was when an Australian truck driver in a hurry sideswiped me, broke off the mirror on my rental car and forced me off the road. What saved me from the canyon was the guard rail. The driver did not stop. I hadn’t enough time to note his license number and the police could not identify the driver from the name of the company on the truck; the rental company charged me several thousand dollars for the damage to the car because of the incomplete police report.

The truth is, the drivers in both Australia and Israel need far more severe punishments for dangerous driving – revocation of license, for example for more than a single incident.

YIGAL HOROWITZ, PHD Beersheba