Turning drivers into ATMs for the state

Quietly, during the war, the Knesset passed the "Administrative Traffic Violations" law - a very significant reform in the field of transportation that is expected to take effect in about a year and a half. The new law, passed by a majority of only 10 Knesset members, will transfer many traffic offenses to an administrative court, which will decide cases based on written evidence without the need for drivers to appear in court.

According to the new law, written hearings will be conducted before a registrar who is not a judge, and when disputes require a hearing, it will be held online, not in a courtroom. Only serious traffic offenses, which even today belong to the highest severity level, such as causing accidents with injuries or driving under the influence, will be heard by the traffic court.

The reform did not emerge in a vacuum. In fact, the increased enforcement on Israeli drivers and the possibility of contesting the harsh decree only through the court have created a huge burden on the traffic courts. Every day, hundreds of cases, most of them involving fine-related offenses, are handled in the courts. For instance, in 2018, about 1.2 million traffic tickets were issued in Israel, the vast majority of which were "administrative fines," and about 140,000 criminal proceedings were opened in the traffic courts.

The goal of the new law is essentially to improve efficiency and significantly reduce the burden on the courts.

How will the process work in the administrative traffic court?

As mentioned, the court will not handle all traffic offenses, only fine-related offenses, which until now were considered "administrative fines," and will now be referred to as "violations," with fines ranging from NIS 100 to 1,500.

These are technical offenses such as expired driving licenses and vehicle registrations, parking in prohibited areas, and pedestrian offenses, but the new court will also address more serious violations, such as failing to obey traffic signs, not stopping at a stop sign, crossing an intersection on a red or yellow light, failing to obey lane arrows, minor vehicle defects, intersection overtaking, not using seat belts, and more.

The driver will not be called an "offender" but rather a "violator," and they will have the option to appeal the ticket, but this option will be more limited and will be decided on appeal by the administrative court, and then in a final appeal before the magistrate's court.

The appeal will be submitted to the court through an online system, and the court will consider only written evidence and arguments.

This means that there will be no in-person hearing before the judge (who is not a judge) except in exceptional cases, and even then, the judge will have to justify why the hearing is taking place in the presence of both parties.

Which drivers will be affected by the new legal situation?

With the new law, the State of Israel is shifting enforcement and punishment onto citizens almost entirely through an automated system. Cameras and drones will document you, you will receive automatic notifications by mail, and you can only appeal the decision in writing.

Each year, penalties for traffic violations are almost always increased, the number of offenses requiring fines grows, and the fines become more expensive. This trend serves the public coffers, and in effect, the enforcement of traffic violations has become a new source of taxation on citizens.

As the system becomes more efficient, robotic, and almost entirely automatic, it practically invites increased sanctions on drivers. Courts will not be overwhelmed if there is a 20% increase in drivers caught for minor offenses if their cases are handled as paperwork before judges who are not actual judges. The public is unaware of this dangerous process, and therefore no one strongly opposes it.

Thus, the state streamlines the conviction of offending drivers, but on the other hand, does not raise the standards for enforcement bodies. In fact, for many offenses, there is still a reliance on the declaration of the police officer who issued the ticket, to which the system assigns a great deal of credibility. When the system relies solely on written material, without assessing the parties, and without allowing the driver to state their case or summon the officer to refute his version, the officer's version gains disproportionate power.

There is no shortage of examples of officers who have "pinned" offenses that did not happen to innocent drivers. The Police Internal Investigations Department recently opened an investigation against a policewoman who fabricated offenses and issued tickets with no basis in reality. She was tried and convicted. There are also officers who do not bother to comply with enforcement procedures when filling out a ticket. In fact, in many traffic violations today, if a substantive hearing were held in court, the driver would likely see the charges amended and their expected punishment reduced.

It is important to remember that hundreds of thousands of Israelis depend on their driver's license for their livelihood. Millions of Israelis travel daily on the roads to their workplaces, others work as drivers, or need to attend business meetings in various geographical locations. Those whose driver's license is the basis of their livelihood are not necessarily concerned about the financial fines. Every fine accrues points, and when a driver accumulates many points, they may lose their license. Revocation of a driver's license, even temporarily, could cut off the livelihood of hundreds of thousands of workers in the economy.

And I haven't even touched on the issue of accessibility, which is truly critical. It is well known that the increased use of technology excludes entire communities from accessing essential services. It can be said that most of the pensioners in Israel have great difficulty managing with technology. This is painfully evident in their interactions with banks, where technology has turned them into a weakened and marginalized population.

It is crucial to remember that access to courts is the foundation of a democratic rule of law, and the new reform harshly tramples on large populations that are technologically challenged.

In general, people who are less technologically savvy will not know how to respond in time to tickets, and even when they suffer an egregious injustice, many will forgo the "experience" of appealing, especially when they understand that the court will only hear them online.

Therefore, the Israeli legislator must provide a balancing solution to the new reform. There must be an obligatory documentation of offenses using state-approved technological means, whose accuracy is indisputable. In such cases, reliance on the officer's word or a ticket he filled out without photographic evidence should not be permitted. Additionally, the Knesset must impose an annual limit, similar to the property tax field, on the rate of fine increases and the deepening of revenue collection from drivers through administrative enforcement. It is time for Israeli drivers to stop being the state's generous ATM.

The writer is a traffic lawyer, former police officer, investigator, and prosecutor in the Traffic Department.