Renting a Car in Israel or reasons not to buy a car

Ever since the Gaza War and the recent troubles in Jerusalem, I have been really grateful to live in Haifa a city of peaceful coexistence, whose sister city is San Francisco a town with much more charm than Haifa. San Francisco would be the beautiful younger sister, and Haifa would be the not-as-pretty sister who works hard and doesn’t get into trouble.

David and I decided to rent a car and take a little road trip and go to Ein Gedi a kibbutz/resort by the Dead Sea and enjoy the salty/sulfuric, below sea level air that clears up sinus problems almost instantly. What’s cool is the air is so thick at the Dead Sea you don’t burn even if the summer sun is blasting and the temps are over a hundred degrees (that would be Fahrenheit not Celsius). I basically want live at the resort, but there’s no IKEA store nearby, so living there would not be practical.

Nevertheless, I was concerned about driving down Highway 90, a portion of which goes through the West Bank, because I have seen videos of children positioning themselves on the high cliffs and throwing big rocks at cars.

The question is, am I going to let my fears — rational or irrational — prevent me from doing what I want to do?

The answer is, yes.

However, David and I sort of push each other to go beyond our fears, so we rented a car and delighted in a nice few days of fun and relaxation.

Except driving in Israel is bitch. You’ll be driving down a lane and all of a sudden the lane is gone with no warning. People honk at you all the time, like if you hesitate trying to decide if you should turn or go straight or when you drive too slow as in going the speed limit.

Instead of stop signs, Israel tends to favor roundabouts. The rule is first one in the roundabout has the right of way, so, of course, every driver tries to go through first. When two drivers enter the roundabout at exact the same time, there could be a problem, or in our case a near miss.

You have to pay close attention to what’s going on with the car in front of you, because the driver may suddenly stop in the middle of the road in order to get out of the car and run an errand or talk to someone they recognized on the sidewalk. Really.

You have to watch out for pedestrians and cats in the road. Pedestrians have the right of way and just merrily enter a crosswalk. So you might need to slam on the brakes not to hit them because you were going way too fast and forgot that intersections are for people too. Of course, when I’m walking across the street and have the right of way, I always hold my breath a bit because I never know if the oncoming car is going to stop or not. So far, I haven’t been hit, but there have been numerous times when I was already in the intersection and a car has zoomed right past seemingly oblivious of the pedestrian they nearly smashed into if I hadn’t stopped and cowered. But you pretty much have to step into the intersection and defy the oncoming car to stop, otherwise you’d never get across the street, unless some nice person who obeyed the rules of the road actually saw you and waved you across.

A friend of mine asked why we just didn’t buy a car. Part of the reason is because of the aforementioned reasons and we just don’t want to drive here.  David and I have learned how to take the bus, and the stress levels of owning a car have decreased significantly. Plus, I worry about everything. I worry so much my hair turned prematurely gray. Here are things I no longer have to worry about by not having a car:

Getting killed in an accident

Killing someone in an accident

Running over a cat, dog, or other type of critter

Hitting a kid that ran into the street

Hitting a pedestrian

Finding parking

The car starting in the morning

The car getting stolen

Someone keying the car

Oil changes

Gas prices

Alignments

Car maintenance

Flat tires, bald tires, buying new tires

Transmission trouble

Window knicks

Broken head/tail lights

Dents

Scratches

Being honked at

Insurance

Getting a ticket for going too fast

Getting a ticket for anything else, but mostly going too fast

Going the wrong way down a one-way street

Participating in a non-sustainable air-polluting mode of transportation

…to name a few.

So not having to worry about driving and owning a car frees me up to worry about other more important things like the tunnels in Gaza, the tunnels up north and everywhere else in Israel, Iran getting the bomb, water scarcity, air quality, the dying oceans, destruction of the rain forest, over population, finishing my doctorate, and last but not least I have much more time to worry about my daughter which drives her up a friggin’ wall.