With 443 fatalities, 2025 is Israel’s deadliest year on the roads in two decades

Fatal accidents surge, with six traffic-related deaths in past week; police and road safety agency say they lack necessary funds, personnel to enforce traffic laws

A spate of fatal car accidents at the start of this week made this year the deadliest for road users in two decades, with 443 people killed in traffic-related incidents since the start of 2025.

With just two weeks left until the end of the year, the number of road fatalities has already topped last year’s high death toll of 438 people, according to data from the National Road Safety Authority.

The past few years have seen increased numbers of traffic-related deaths, with road safety officials bemoaning persistent inaction by elected officials. The agency recorded 361 fatalities in 2023 and 351 in 2022.

This year’s death toll is the highest since 2005, when 460 were killed in traffic accidents.

Six people have been killed in traffic-related incidents this week, including a pedestrian in her 60s who was hit by a bus on Wednesday and later succumbed to her injuries in the hospital.

A young man from Beit Shemesh was killed Monday when he stopped his car on the side of highway following a tire puncture.

On Sunday, four people were killed, among them a three-year-old Bedouin girl who was hit by a car; Hatzalah paramedic Chemi Erlanger, who died in a crash while driving his motorcycle home; Gefen Cohen, an 18-year-old girl from Tiberias, who died after crashing in an off-road vehicle; and Raja Zoabi, a former athlete for the Bnei Sakhnin soccer team, who was killed in a motorcycle crash near Afula.

Of those killed this year, 118 were pedestrians, 142 were driving a private vehicle, 95 were on a motorcycle or motor scooter, 15 were on electric scooters or e-bikes, 13 were in trucks, another 13 on tractors, nine on bicycles and and eight on buses. The remaining 30 were killed in other or unknown circumstances.

Traffic deaths have surged as the outgoing head of the NRSA, an independent body meant to manage the fight against road accidents and coordinate between different ministries, warned that the delayed implementation of a multi-year, budgeted plan for the agency has hampered efforts to combat the phenomenon.

The first strategic plan of its kind was approved in 2005 and implemented over the course of 10 years until 2015. A State Comptroller’s report from May 2024 stated that the plan’s goals — including deploying at least 450 traffic enforcement units on the roads and reducing traffic deaths to 300 at most — were never met.

After returning to office in late 2022, Transportation Minister Miri Regev delayed signing off on the program for months, before finally approving it in November.

In an emergency conference announcing the plan’s approval, NRSA chief Yoram Halevy lamented that he “failed in his role” as head of the authority, in what was perceived as his final speech.

“For a year and a half, we’ve been working on the national plan. The minister [Regev] approved the plan and this is a giant step, but implementation is still far-off,” he said.

He added that the NRSA is unable to fulfill its role of coordinating between different ministries to combat hiking traffic deaths because it lacks meaningful authority and sufficient funds. “It is unable to make things happen,” he continued.

Upon its founding, the government determined that the NRSA’s budget would be NIS 550 million (171 million) each year, though its allocated budget has diminished steadily over time. Today, it stands at just NIS 60 million ($19 million), according to the Marker.

Meanwhile, the police Traffic Division is operating far below international standards.

According to the business paper, there is one police patrol car for every 180 kilometers (112 miles) on intercity roads, as opposed to the OECD average of one police vehicle for every 10 kilometers (6 miles).

Deputy Commissioner Chaim Shmueli, who heads the division, told a Knesset committee in August that the enforcement body is bleeding police officers. “We are missing nearly 100 competent [people], I don’t have officers to put in patrol cars,” he said.

Without enough police to patrol the roads, the Transportation Ministry seems to be trying to compensate by advancing harsher measures against road users to deter reckless driving.

Regev announced in November that police would begin enforcing hefty fines of NIS 10,000 ($3,000) against drivers who use their phones. The current fine for using a cellphone while driving is NIS 1,000 ($300) and eight penalty points.

According to Regev, law enforcement would be able to issue the steep fine without even a court hearing on the first offense. Drivers run the risk of having their cars impounded if caught using their phones a second time on the road.

“We will go so far as to confiscate the vehicle. If they [police] catch a person texting, they will immediately give him a NIS 10,000 fine the first time. He won’t go to court,” she said. “The second time, it will be the confiscation of the vehicle.”

Regev said she had consulted with her counterparts abroad and learned that two things that brought down accident numbers were “enforcement and punishment.”

She said the police, the Justice Ministry and the NRSA have been tasked with putting together a list of the seven traffic violations that cause the most crashes, along with recommendations for the punishments that should be imposed.