Israel – The driver of the bus involved in a collision that left 6 people dead Sunday night was ordered kept in custody for three days, on suspicion of negligent manslaughter and of tampering with the investigation of the accident.
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In court on Monday, police said that in the 40 minutes between the time the accident happened and when the police placed him under arrest, Chaim Biton managed to remove the bus’s tachograph – which records the vehicle’s speed – and replace it after removing a disc.
Police also said he made a series of phone calls during those 40 minutes and they are working with the cellular companies to access the numbers he called.
The arrest warrant for Biton says the police case so far is based on forensic evidence taken from the scene as well Biton’s testimony and that of the truck driver he hit and multiple witnesses at the scene.
Police said that while driving his 402 Egged bus on highway 1 from Jerusalem to Bnei Brak “for reasons that remain unclear, he left the right lane and began driving in the shoulder and did not notice a disabled truck on the side of the road and struck it with great force.”
Police said that at the last moment he apparently did notice the truck because he swerved to the left, causing the bus to hit the truck mainly on its back left side.
Almost all of the passengers sitting on the right side of the bus were killed or hurt as a crane mounted on the back of the truck gutted the right side of the bus. Speaking at the Jerusalem Traffic Court on Sunday, police said the accident “looked like a terror attack”.
Biton was arrested at the scene of the accident at 7:30 Sunday night, some 40 minutes after the collision. Police continued to investigate the scene until 2am, after which they questioned Biton until 6:30am.
The accident on Highway 1 bore a striking resemblance to an accident involving Biton in December 2013. Like Sunday’s accident, in that collision Biton was driving the 402 line on Highway 1 from Jerusalem to Bnei Brak when he hit a truck from behind, leaving 18 passengers lightly hurt.
The victims of the accident were cleared for publication on Monday morning. They include Yisrael Weinberg, 26, Yaakov Meir Hashin, 27, Aharon Mordechai, 18, Leah Malmud, 50, Hannah Fasha Frenkel, 23, all from Jerusalem, and Levi Yitzhak Amdadi, 17, from Yavniel.
Another passenger remains in serious condition.
Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz said Monday that” “It is totally clear that in that road, it’s not an area that needs to be renovated. It was clear there was a distraction and police are currently investigating it.
“The infrastructure is good and no one else can be blamed,” Katz added at a Knesset Economics Committee meeting.
Katz also said that, starting in November, all buses and trucks will be required to use a “life-saving warning system,” and he will work to make the date earlier.
However, Knesset Caucus to Prevent Traffic Accidents chairman Hamad Amar blamed the problem on the shoulders of most roads not being wide enough.
“Although the Transportation Ministry set aside NIS 2 billion to take care of dangerous sites like these, the plan was not implemented fully nor fast enough, and as a result, we regularly see killer accidents on these roads,” Amar said.
Amar said that traffic accidents are not fate, and called for a change in national priorities to prevent them by budgeting for additional traffic police, enforcement and education.
I said this was the only site that said yesterday that the driver was arab it turns out it was a Jewish driver and it wasn’t terror. Unfortunely accidents happen a lot in israel the way people drive there the roads are very curvy and hilly
Nothing happens without Hashems will..Unfortunately people become victims in the plan…but its difficult to figure these things out. We need to make the right choices and do the right things…and the rest is up to Hashem. We cannot debate these issues, they are not debateable…unless the rules of normal behavior are broken..
May all the families find comfort and may we never hear if tzuros and pain ANYMORE.
HASHEM please take us out of the golus…enough of the pain and tears.
Well, well – once again the frum bigots are proved wrong. What happened to all the remarks posted yesterday declaring that the driver of the bus was an Arab? First, you all tried to blame the Arab truck driver. Then, when it emerged that his truck was parked and the bus rammed into it, you immediately turned your focus on the Egged bus driver, who, it was proclaimed with much certainty, was an Arab and probably a terrorist. Now we know the bus driver is an Israeli Jew – ans a moolah-wearing one at that. Prejudice and bigotry make a person dumb. Too many frum yidden fall into that category.
No doubt he’s more distressed about being the bad shliach then about his arrest.
Egged needs to install front and rear dashcams that cannot be shut or moved by the driver. They are relatively inexpensive and would give a definite answer as to what happened in a crash.