Comments on: Israeli road-rage rant

By: Eran

Eran — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 14:48:42 +0000

The company keeps track but you have all the notes so you can call back and see how they’re doing.

By: Oded

Oded — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 12:49:15 +0000

Yes, but I wouldn’t mind doing it from time to time. I think it will be more effective to actually do the chaperoning then just talk about it. Although there is the question of quality assurance.

By: Eran

Eran — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 12:01:58 +0000

Just the meetings. The point is to enable the better use of the escorted time. The parents still do it themselves.
Besides, I don’t think someone will ask you to go around with the kid for three months. That’s way above and beyond the call of any duty.

By: Oded

Oded — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 06:27:20 +0000

Do you actually get to escort young drivers or its just meetings?

By: Eran

Eran — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 05:48:56 +0000

I still think Israeli roads and drivers can improve. The program I was a part of it, “Or Yarok for Life” is all about making the escorted driving period more pleasant and effective. But I used it for much more than that.
First of all, if you facilitate communication between the driver and their parents, experience on the road can seep through better. But secondly, I also explained and got the people talking about not necessarily how to drive better but how to learn from driving and improve yourself. My main points were always to pay attention and think. If you see something you don’t like on the road, it’s probable that other drivers don’t like it too so don’t do it. If you see someone driving badly, drive better and lead by example.
If you volunteer for the program, you get a training session and specific material but you also get to talk to the drivers in person as they start driving, and that’s some power right there.

By: Oded

Oded — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 22:44:35 +0000

Arik – yes, that’s about right. I’m pretty sure some people wave their fists at me when I drive past

Regarding education – I don’t have any bright ideas about this, but I’d welcome any who might suggest something.

I have not been to the Iberian peninsula yet, but I’ve driven in a lot of places – including the British isles (freeways are mostly great, country roads much less so), central Europe (they can put some work into freeways as well) and the US (who the fsck thought of the brilliant idea of building concrete motorways?), and they could definitely use a page out of the Israeli roads company’s book (granted, its hard to maintain roads in Ohio’s weather, but still).

And the drivers – even when they drive like mad man (see under “Italian Drivers”), they have much better road manners then Israelis, please don’t confuse manners with “pleasant driving”.

By: ik_5

ik_5 — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 21:47:24 +0000

Oded, actually most roads are not that good in Israel. I’ve seen better roads in spain for example.
You have a lot of problems like placing the signs of places very close to the place you need to turn. You have roads that parts of them have street lights and some does not (the Shore road for example, can you agree with me that it’s a highly used road ?).
And I can continue regarding problems in the road…

Having said that, I do agree with you about the lack of proper behavior by the average driver that thinks that they are at least Michael Shoomacher, when they actually driver so bad, that a 5 years old kid on a bike drive better then they do.

But on Portugal for example, they are very nice people, but on the road they drive even worse then in here. On the city each of them stop like 10cm from the next car, and if a motorcycle will want to pass on a bigger space, they will not let him and driver to be 5cm from the next car.
They press on the gass when people cross the road if the car have a green light, and many other illness…

I also dislike people that drive in the middle and make me go to the most left lane for passing them. and I dislike when people think that I drive slow, so they come closer to my car to make me drive faster (I usually drive according to the signs on the road, even if most people ignore them, it’s because I do not want a ticket, rather then anything else).
I can continue on and on, but on the bottom line, it’s all about education (as Eran said), do you want to educate people ? if so then please do so, otherwise all you have is to complain.

By: Arik

Arik — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 21:38:22 +0000

Nothing like a dose of self-hate

By: Oded

Oded — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 18:07:08 +0000

Amir: breaking because there’s a police patrol on the road is the worst thing ever and possibly a high cause of accidents. Its always a funny spectacle seeing a police car doing 100 kph on the highway, in front of it the road is empty and behind it – trailing by about half a kilometer – a column of cars whose drivers are too afraid to get close.

Eran, I though it was about educating people not to drive over the speed limit, wear seat-belts, etc’. Not actual road courtesy.

By: Eran

Eran — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 12:53:32 +0000

I tried to educate some. Maybe you should volunteer? You know, not too much, once or twice a week maybe?