A heated debate broke out Monday in the Knesset Economic Affairs Committee over a Transportation Ministry proposal to reduce the frequency of annual vehicle inspections for private cars, with lawmakers and industry representatives clashing over whether the reform would improve convenience or endanger public safety.

Under the proposal being advanced by the Transportation Ministry, privately owned vehicles up to seven or nine years old would undergo licensing inspections once every two years instead of annually.

Committee chairman David Bitan immediately challenged the economic justification behind the move.

“The fact that a person saves 100 shekels a year has no impact whatsoever on the cost of living,” Bitan said. “On the other hand, there is the issue of vehicle safety.”

Bitan proposed an alternative model under which inspection frequency would be based primarily on mileage, while still requiring at least one inspection every two years.

“There is a complete imbalance in determining this according to years alone,” he argued. “Leased vehicles travel tens of thousands of kilometers each year, while others travel only a few thousand. It makes no sense to apply the same rule to everyone.”

MK Sasson Guetta backed the proposal and argued that if the Transportation Ministry truly wanted to ease the financial burden on citizens, it should reduce vehicle licensing fees rather than weaken safety standards.

Deputy Director-General of the Regulatory Authority Guy Mor defended the reform, insisting that the primary savings would come not from the inspection fee itself, but from the time citizens spend dealing with the process.

“When someone dedicates half a day to a vehicle inspection, that’s worth a lot of money. This represents a national savings of about one billion shekels per year,” Mor said.

He also stated that only five percent of road accidents stem from mechanical failures, comments that triggered sharp backlash from representatives of the automotive repair industry.

Ronen Levy, chairman of the Garage Owners Association, argued that European countries are actually increasing inspection frequency because of declining safety standards and odometer fraud.

Attorney Raz Nizri, representing the vehicle inspection institutes, presented opposing data based on research by Professor Moshe Becker, claiming the proposed reduction in inspections would increase accidents and cause economic damages estimated at 4.3 billion shekels annually.

According to Nizri, the Transportation Ministry is ignoring the real financial consequences of traffic accidents.

Representatives of the inspection institutes added that the average vehicle inspection lasts only 26 minutes and argued that “all the Transportation Ministry is saving citizens is the cost of a falafel portion and a bottle of grape juice.”

On the other side of the debate, Neta Lee Graiver, CEO of the advocacy group “Our Interest,” supported the reform and dismissed the warnings as exaggerated.

“As a citizen, I wait two and a half hours outside the inspection institute,” she said. “It’s troubling to hear professionals claim that this inspection ‘is worthless anyway.’”

Yosef Naim, chairman of the tire industry association, warned that poor road infrastructure is causing accelerated tire deterioration and claimed that more than half of the vehicles inspected by Transportation Ministry mobile enforcement units are found with severe defects.

Jonathan Ilan, a representative of the National Road Safety Authority, noted that 168 people have been killed in traffic accidents since the beginning of the year.

He clarified that the authority does not oppose reducing inspection frequency for newer private vehicles, where no proven link has been found between mechanical failure and accidents. However, he said older and heavier vehicles show a direct correlation between wear, mileage, and safety risks.

A police representative similarly voiced support for applying the reform only to newer vehicles.

At the conclusion of the discussion, Bitan demanded that the Transportation Ministry halt advancement of the reform until a comprehensive professional review is completed.

He again urged officials to examine a mileage-based model and instructed the ministry to return to the committee within a week with detailed answers.

“We managed until now with the existing system,” Bitan said. “We can wait a little longer to receive a reliable safety report — and not endanger human lives in the name of reducing regulation.”

{Matzav.com}