A video of a rampaging driver that was recorded by the Shomrei Ha'rah project/Haralbad
One of the most important civil projects in the fight against traffic accidents is on the verge of closure, due to a change in policy by the new chairman of the Haralbad, retired superintendent Yoram Halevi.
The road keepers project is based on volunteers who use a dedicated application on their cell phones to record offenses by other drivers. The documentation is sent to the control center of the highway guards, where it will be examined whether the case justifies a traffic report, and contains all the details necessary for this, and if so, it is forwarded to the police traffic division, which has the authority to decide whether to produce a traffic report. In the event that the incident does not pass the report threshold, the road guards send a "notification letter" to the photographed driver, with a description of the problem and recommendations on how to avoid it.
In 2023, with 1,200 volunteers, the organization received 38,000 videos, of which approximately 20,000 were transferred to the police for further processing. More than 90% of those videos became traffic reports, for dangerous offenses of crossing a white line, running a red light, and more. The project, which was established in 2016, helps the police, which is struggling with a permanent lack of mobility and police officers, to increase road enforcement, and is supported by senior officials of the traffic department.
In 2017, the government approved the use of the videos by the police, and last year it won a special budget of NIS 4 million for the promotion and launch of an updated application. It was also determined last year that the employees of the Safe Path association will be the ones to perform the early screening by the police to make it easier for them to handle them, and it currently employs 10 employees, including three on the autistic spectrum who are employed in reviewing the videos.
Halevi, a close relative of Transport Minister Miri Regev, whom she appointed after bringing about the resignation of two respected professionals, the previous chairman Avi Naor, and the CEO Erez Kita, demands that the nature of the project be changed. Halevi decided to instruct the volunteers which offenses to document, to commit to report numbers for 10 life-saving offenses, and to stop transferring to the police documentation of road bullying offenses, such as bypassing traffic jams on the sidelines, or stealing a left turn, on the grounds that they are not life-threatening. These are offenses that bother normal drivers, and the police do not come to enforce them.
A study conducted in 2021 by Albert, Dimitri Bookchin and Tomer Toledo from the Holon Institute of Technology and from the Technion determined that the project complements police enforcement, and focuses on road bullying offenses, which the police have difficulty enforcing due to a lack of police officers and mobility that dictates a limited deployment in the field. According to the research, today about 90% of the videos are converted into reports by the police, but the project suffers from the material fatigue of the volunteers, and more needs to be invested in their training.
The special budget approved last year also made it possible to change the recruitment and training format for the volunteers, whose number increased this year to more than 5,000. However, at the beginning of the month, after the beginning of the year, the Harlav'd did not transfer the operating budget for 2024 to the association, it announced the closure of its control center. The Harlav'd initially justified the move to the association by cutting the authority's budget, but the budget comes directly from the Ministry of Finance, regardless of the Harlav's budget "D. The professional level in the treasury, which supports the continuation of the project's activities, allocated NIS 5.4 million to its activities this year.
After Walla Car contacted the RLB for a response yesterday, the association wrote to the volunteers this morning: "Good morning to everyone, I am updating that a direct channel has been opened with the chairman of the RLB Yoram Halevi, for the discussion regarding the 2024 agreement. We are optimistic because we feel that all parties are interested in reaching a solution and starting accelerated activities this year. We will, of course, continue to update."
The Halbad stated that the bodies have reached agreements and that it is estimated that an agreement will be signed soon. However, Beralbad claimed that they only received 4 million shekels from the treasury, and refused to reveal which traffic offenses its activities will focus on.
It should be noted that since the beginning of the year, 115 people have been killed on Israeli roads, an increase of 7%.