The number of traffic accidents involving casualties increased in 2021 compared to 2020, according to a report from the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS). There were relatively few traffic accidents in 2020 as the COVID-19 pandemic kept many drivers off the road.
There has been a general upward trend in the number of serious and fatal traffic accidents in recent years.
Israel Police received 11,554 reports of traffic accidents resulting in casualties during 2021, a 6.6% increase from the previous year. However, there was an overall decrease of 8.8% compared to pre-pandemic 2019.
Injuries and deaths: Who, where, how?
The CBS reports that of the 11,554 accidents with casualties, 336 were fatal, 2,208 were very serious and the remaining resulted in light injuries.
Furthermore, the CBS said that just over two-thirds of all 11,554 accidents resulting in injury occurred in cities. Yet, 59.8% of fatal traffic accidents took place in non-urban areas.
A total of 20,992 vehicles were involved in 2021’s casualty-causing accidents – a 7.7% increase from 2020 and a 7.8% decrease from 2019.
The majority of accidents occurred in crashes between private cars, which are most of the vehicles on the road in Israel. Notably, motorcycles compose roughly 4% of all vehicles on the road but were involved in 16% of all fatal accidents in 2021 and 10.9% of all accidents resulting in casualties.
The data also showed that three-quarters of individuals involved in accidents were men, although the report did include a breakdown of Israel’s total driving population by gender.
Israel measured against the world
According to World Health Organization data from 2018, Israel has one of the best traffic records in the Middle East, with an average of 4.2 deaths per 100,000 people on the road. These numbers are on par with countries such as Canada, Japan and Norway and significantly lower than Jordan, Egypt and the United States.