Moshe Feiglin Video

Moshe Feiglin on MVAs on Israel's Channel 2 (6:51)
29 Av 5770 / August 9, '10


 
 Transcript of Film:

Announcer: David, the son of Moshe Feiglin was injured in a car accident over a month ago. Since then he has been unconscious. His father is here to talk about accidents and about proposals and insights into what we are willing to give up – or are not willing to give up - so that the number of dead will decrease or desist.


Announcer: David Yosef Feiglin, 16 years old, was seriously injured in a car accident more than a month ago. Since then he is still unconscious. We are hosting his father, Moshe Feiglin, who thinks that we have still not done everything to fight car accidents. Good morning to the chairman of Manhigut Yehudit in the Likud.

Good morning.

First of all we will ask how he is doing.

Thank you very much and thank you to all the people who are praying or doing some small good deed for the merit of my son.

Is there any progress or change in his condition?

Thank G-d, every day we see some small miracle. He is progressing, he is strong. We believe in G-d and David will be fine, with G-d's help.

How do you perceive life, reality? Was your entire outlook on life shaken up as a result of this?
What is important? What is not important?

There is certainly a slightly different approach to life, yes.

Among other things you were interviewed about the doctors that are treating your son – Arab doctors.

There were also Arab staff members and they were excellent. They were completely fine.

Let us talk about your thoughts about the war against traffic accidents. You have published an article that says that we are not willing to sacrifice the most insignificant things in order to prevent the death on the roads. This is a matter of a cognitive decision: Are we willing to make even the slightest effort in order to ensure that these things do not happen? Because until it happens to someone in his own home, we see it as just names, somebody else's tragedy, numbers, but we don't understand that this is what is happening, right?

Right now my situation is that I have been driving for thirty years and I have also received the blow in the most personal way. So suddenly I have the perspective of both. Every time that I get into the car, I  catch myself: Just a minute, just now I was a driver but I forgot that I am a victim. From the vantage point at which I am, I think that it is a much broader perspective. I think that very important things are being done. I am not invalidating or scoffing at the truly tremendous efforts that are being made. But the bottom line is that I feel like we are looking for the coin under the streetlight. As a society, we are not really willing to pay the price to drastically reduce the number of accidents.

What is the price?

Oh, that is really the point. I think that on the one hand there are anachronistic laws that can be eased. The fact that on today's modern highways and with today's modern cars, they do not raise the speed limit from 90 kph to 100 or 110 kph is an example. But the main direction is the solution that Giuliani used in New York; to treat every small traffic offense as the end of the world. After you have cut back on the traffic laws and left those laws that you cannot play around with – there is no choice, you cannot cross a white line – and that is what happened to my son: A different driver crossed a white line and hit my son.

He made a u-turn.

He crossed a white line to make a u-turn and now my son is in the hospital. Or running a red light or accidents of that nature. I am talking about every offense that remains on the law books after we have been forthcoming and taken all the other necessary measures, will bring about something very simple: Immediate annulment of the driver's license, and storage of the car until after the trial. That's it. You know that if you committed a traffic offense, you have no license until after the trial. And we know how much time it takes until the trial. And you don't have a car.

But our experience proves something slightly different. Usually, when we hear about fatal MVAs, let's say the accident between the train and the minibus over the weekend, the driver had 11 previous traffic offenses. In other words, people commit their traffic offenses, get some sort of punishment and go back to the road with the same behavior.

Hila, that is exactly what I am talking about. Why did he have eleven previous traffic offenses? Because all of those offenses were duly recorded, but he continued to drive until the trial that will or will not take place. It should work in the exact opposite way. As soon as you have committed the first offense, and that driver knows that for the next half year or year he will not be able to drive, even if he will be acquitted in the end, he will not commit the second or third offense. He would not get into the situation in which he drove onto the train tracks.

Imagine that I hand you a pistol, I insert the magazine, put the bullet in the chamber, release the safety catch and say to you, "Hold this and continue the interview with me now." O.k.? And keep in mind that if at any point you point the gun at me, you will go to jail for half a year. We have to understand that when we get into a car, that is the exact situation. We are taking a loaded gun without the safety catch into our hands. But we relate to it differently.

That is not a novel insight, there are many people who think that exacting and draconian enforcement will do the job. So why doesn't that happen?

Because we are not willing to pay the price. It is not a matter of law. I am not talking about changing the law. I am very connected to what Police Chief Karadi said before. It is a cultural issue. Is our materialistic, achievement-oriented, competitive society, with the fast pace to which we cling willing to pay something in exchange for the lives of a few hundred people a year? That's all. It is very, very simple. It is not connected to laws, infrastructure, traffic lights, all of which must be in place. The question is 'Are we truly willing to pay the price?'

And as long as it is somebody else's son, the answer is 'no'.

And the answer is 'no'.

Moshe Feiglin, thank you very much.



 

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