Deadly Highway 31: today’s tragic traffic accident was not the first

Deadly Highway 31: today’s tragic traffic accident was not the first

Highway 31, the scene of today’s tragic traffic accident that took the lives of 8 women and injured tens, has a history of fatal traffic accidents, due to narrow shoulders and lanes without separation.

Highway 31. A history of traffic accidents. Photo Credit: Israeli Police Traffic Division / Channel 2 News

The fatal traffic accident that took place today on Highway 31, in which eight women were killed and tens of others injured, joins a long list of accidents in the same area.

Based on data received from the “Or Yarok” association for safer driving in Israel, the highway is labeled “red”, and takes the lives of nine people each year, while injuring more than 200 drivers, passengers and pedestrians yearly. Only last weekend a pedestrian was killed on Highway 31 after being hit by a private vehicle.

“Highway 31 is a ‘red’ and dangerous road. The highway consists of one lane for each direction, without separation to prevent head-on collisions. In addition, the highway shoulders are narrow, the entrances and exits are dangerous and are not organized, a fact which highly endangers the passengers on it,” said Shmuel Abuav, Chief Executive of Or Yarok. Abuav stressed that “the driver is not always the only guilty party in traffic accidents. The state has a responsibility. The Ministry of Tranportation must improve the infrastructure on the highway, by building a separation barrier between the lanes and fixing the entrances and exits to villages alongside the highway.”

Last October, Ignat Ilchenko and his 4-year-old daughter Maya were killed on Highway 31. They were returning from a family vacation in the Dead Sea area, when a vehicle driving on the opposite lane illegally bypassed a police car and a truck and hit the Ilchenko family vehicle forcefully. The mother and sister of the family were also injured during the accident.