Free ticket to the emergency room: elderly passengers fall between the cracks of the Transportation Ministry
Meital Lehavi, Deputy Mayor of Tel Aviv, has called on Transportation Minister Miri Regev to cancel the mandatory validation requirement for senior citizens on buses, citing the risk of falls. According to Gertner Institute data, 1,520 people were hospitalized in the past decade due to falls on buses, most of them elderly. Lehavi proposes alternative technological solutions.
Meital Lehavi, Deputy Mayor of Tel Aviv-Yafo and holder of the transportation portfolio, has appealed to Transportation Minister Miri Regev to cancel the mandatory validation requirement for senior citizens on buses. According to Lehavi, the obligation to validate upon boarding endangers elderly passengers, especially on new electric buses with strong acceleration. According to Gertner Institute data, 1,520 people were hospitalized in the past decade due to falls on buses, more than two-thirds of them elderly, mostly women. Eleven were seriously or critically injured, and seven died. Lehavi argues that the public cost of treating the injured far outweighs the damage from non-validation, and suggests using existing technology, such as a passenger-counting beam already installed on Electra buses, to compensate companies without requiring elderly passengers to validate. At a road safety conference, it was also proposed to place validation devices at bus stops.