If only we just used our heads, the bridge wouldn't have fallen, the floor wouldn't have collapsed, the ceiling wouldn't have crumbled, and the accident could have been prevented. It's simple really.
The place – where road and rail met without an automatic crossing gate – was begging for an accident, just like the 200 other unprotected crossing points throughout the country.
And what do the suits in Israel Railways (or in the Transportation Ministry) say? "It costs tens of thousands of shekels to erect a crossing gate. What can you do? It doesn't make economic sense."
With your indulgence, we'll ignore the fact that the official should have bit his tongue and not tell us about how much money a human being is worth.
A lookout with a flag in 2005
Even if erecting crossing gates would indeed cost tens of thousands shekels, multiplied by 200 times, how many tens or hundreds of millions did the accident cost? What about restitution to the victims' families, the medical care and rehabilitation, the insurance and repair bills?
"The accident occurred in an agricultural area without a lot of traffic, a place where we did not expect an accident."
At least that's what Ynet quoted Transportation Minister Meir Shitreet as saying.
He didn't even finish talking when it became clear that the very same area had seen another crash between a train and a truck. In fact, this very same area was packed with vehicles due to construction on the nearby Trans Israel Highway. A lookout was even posted to warn truck drivers about an approaching train.
But the lookout went home early that day. No one checked to see how late the company paving the highway worked. Someone decided there was no longer a need for a lookout just as someone decided that a lookout could stand in for a temporary crossing gate. Who has ever heard of a country that believed itself advanced would use, in 2005, a lookout with a flag to warn drivers about an oncoming train?
Cool ringtones
The crowding in the first three passenger cars undoubtedly resulted in the large number of the injuries. People crowded in the first cars because the others did not have functioning air-conditioning. Can someone please explain how a train operating on a hot summer day did not have working air-conditioners?
"You can't fence off the tracks. The environmentalist groups want free passage for wild life."
It's a particularly insulting explanation, and one that we heard once again just this morning. Trains race down the rails at a speed of 130 kph (about 81 mph), and according to train engineers, people and vehicles freely and frequently cross those tracks.
If opponents are so concerned about wildlife crossing, let them build a fence that begins 20-30 centimeters off the ground. That way, only people and cars will not get across. Simple, no?
But the most frustrating thing is the fact that what we're talking about does not begin or end with trains. We see it on the road everyday: lanes that aren't properly marked; construction that is unending; unnecessary and dangerous lapses in road safety at intersections.
And the reason for all this laziness is, of course, the lack of a budget.
All this, when government ministers and Knesset members can find in a matter of seconds billions of shekels for national priorities - such as the newest cellular phone. Our representatives can now download video clips, play cool ringtones, watch soccer games, find their way to party headquarters (by way of fancy GPS cards).
One hundred and twenty models cost NIS 400,000 (USD 92,000). That's enough to buy at least 20 railroad crossing gates …
