Going out to a city center in Israel and coming home in one piece is no sinecure. It requires skills and combat capability. If you are a pedestrian, you need extraordinary dexterity to avoid the deadly electric weapon that rushes towards you. It zigzags on the sidewalk, passes through red lights and crosses intersections diagonally.
If you are driving a car, you must pray not to run over a teenager riding an electric bike at 50 kilometers per hour (31 miles per hour), weaving in and out of traffic and not dreaming to stop at red light , do not use a headlight or helmet. But of course he talks on his phone.
To truly understand Israel and the Jewish world – subscribe to Haaretz
On the other hand, if we accept the proposals of the neo-Bolshevik Knesset members to solve the problem, we get more regulation, more bureaucracy, more rules, more government, more taxes and more clerks – until we complete the elegant complete destroy, green, effective and cheap solution the free market has overcome the biggest failure of the government: public transport.
No country in the West is as retarded as Israel in its public transport. This is a huge failure of Minister of Transport Yisrael Katz and his predecessors. It is also the reason that we have a quarter of a million electric bikes, with which we create the highest percentage in the world. There is simply no choice.
In 2009, the Ministry of Finance increased compulsory insurance payments for two-wheeled vehicles. People up to 40 years old were sewn the most; the ministry increased their insurance costs by tens of percentage points, so the annual insurance costs amounted to about one third (!) of the price of the scooter.
This was a bad mistake because the ministry did not take into account the positive effects of driving a motor scooter. The vehicle occupies less road space and less parking space and it relieves traffic jams and reduces fuel consumption, air pollution and the loss of working hours.
Due to the higher insurance rates, the use of two-wheelers has decreased considerably. Young people bought cars and worsened traffic jams.
And that's exactly what will happen to electric bikes if the neo-Bolshevik MK's win. At the forefront is Itzik Shmuli from Zionist Union, which demands mandatory registration, permits, regulations and inspection, as it should be in North Korea.
>> Read more: It is not a bicycle main article
Another MK requires teenagers to apply for a driving license, just like a motorcycle, which should include mandatory insurance at an astronomical price, higher than the price of the electric bicycle.
Meanwhile, Emilie Moatti, who will be the first in the Labor Party, says "this roulette must be taken off the road, damn it." She must have a big, nice car. She does not need a bike. I wonder what she will say to the adults who are going to work on electric scooters because her good, smart, utopian country does not offer the right mass transport.
There is a way to prevent deaths on the road. First build bicycle paths quickly in the congested cities. A high budget must be allocated for this and the enforcement method must be changed. Instead of fines, change the offenses into criminal and put the offenders in prison. Any trader who sells an electric bicycle that can exceed the speed limit must go to jail. Any rider under 16 and / or any rider not wearing a helmet or using his telephone while driving is brought before the criminal judge. That would be a deterrent.
The most important thing is not to impose more regulation, bureaucracy, permits, insurance and central control. We are not allowed to switch off the electric bikes. It is enough that we did this with motor scooters.
Source link