Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics analyzed close to 900,000 incidents of violating vehicular law, learning the most common offense among Israeli motorists is the failure to buckle up, to fasten one’s seatbelt. The report refers to traffic offenses in 2010. The report concludes men violate traffic law more often than women and young drivers do so more often than their adult counterparts.

There were 897,000 traffic violations documented in Israel in 2010, leading to 660,000 convictions. Men accounted for 58% of the total number of summonses issued, as well as 78% of the convictions. Four of every five male drivers were convicted of a traffic violation.

While Arab drivers make up 15% of the drivers nationwide, their conviction rate was 25%. This means one in every four convictions is a driver not counted as part of the Jewish community. Arab females account for 3% of all traffic convictions, as opposed to Jewish females, 22%.

The most common offense among male drivers is excessive speed, while with women it is failure to adhere to a traffic sign and in the Arab sector, failure to use seat belts. 178,000 summonses were issued for failure to use seat belts, 160,000 for speeding, and 143,000 for failure to obey a sign or traffic signal. There were 90,000 summonses for drivers speaking on cellular telephones without a hands free apparatus.

Among male drivers under the age of 24, 27% were convicted of failure to adhere to a traffic sign or speeding. Women in the same category, under 24, are “more dangerous” than the men, most commonly ticketed for failure to heed a sign of traffic signal or speeding.

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)