I saw a number of incidents recently that are representative of a certain mode of behavior that I notice a lot around here. Though these happened on my yishuv (current or former), I have seen the exact same thing many many times in other yishuvim, towns, highways and cities.

Incident 1: I was walking Moshe to his Maon (day care) which is located a few blocks away. A woman is pulling her car out of the driveway and offers us a ride. I look in the car: in addition to the driver, there is one child (not strapped in) in the front-passenger seat (where there is an air bag) and four children (none strapped in, some facing backwards, some standing up) sitting in the back seat. All of the children are four years old or younger. Moshe said that he wanted to walk, which saved me the trouble of refusing (if I had accepted, she would have probably thrown the fifth child into the backseat, and would have had me sit in the front seat with Moshe on my lap).

Incident 2: Picking up Moshe from Maon, I saw a father pick up his 2-3 year old daughter. He elected to drive home in his small motor scooter. He didn’t wear a helmet. And neither did his daughter, as she stood in between his legs, between him and the steering mechanism (I have subsequently seen the same person riding on his motor scooter with two of his kids, none wearing helmets).

Incident 3: A man is taking his two children home from day care. One is less about a year old, the other is about four. They are on two bicycles. The man is holding the one year old in one hand, while using his other hand to steer the bike. The four year old is on her own bike. No helmets.

Incident 4: A parent picks up their infant from day care. Sticks the kid in their car seat without strapping the kid in.

None of the parents involved in any of these incidents wants any harm to come to their children, yet in each of these cases, they are putting their children in danger and are being completely irresponsible and negligent by failing to strap their children in and/or fasten helmets. In many ways, it is part of a societal norm that has been engrained over the years (ie: “we are surrounded by countries who want to kill us, so what if I smoke/don’t buckle up/etc”). But that is no excuse (and neither is the excuse that “I was just driving locally/slowly/carefully”). Data published last Wednesday reports that since 1948, nearly 30,000 Israelis have been killed in automobile accidents (6,000 or 25% more than the total number killed in all of Israel’s wars). Here are some real life examples.

I believe that a lareg part of what olim can contribute to overall life in Israel is to introduce and encourage some positive aspects of daily life that may not be as strongly held in Israel as they are in other Western countries. This applies not just to wearing seat belts and helmets, but also to things like good customer service and politeness. In the current instance, I think that  all parents should be on the lookout for such behavior, and when they see it, try to politely discourage it, talk to others about it, and at the very least make sure that your children are not being transported by people who view wearing seat belts as an “extra”.