 In Israel's densely populated cities, ensuring convenient ways for the population to get around has emerged for policymakers as a key challenge. As I've shared before on this channel, Israel has one of the worst rates of traffic ingestion in the OECD. Traffic gridlock has become the norm rather than the exception in cities like Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Israel is a small and densely populated country. Almost too many people own in cars but unwilling to give them up. Public transport seems like the best long-term bet for Israel's transit and mobility needs. Unfortunately, amazing public transport isn't something that can be created overnight. So as a sort of stop-gap solution, micro-mobility solutions like e-scooters and e-bikes have been surging in popularity since the pandemic. Unfortunately, regulation around the use of these devices has been somewhat lax. Where I live, close to central Jerusalem, it's a daily site to see e-bikes and scooters driving on sidewalks intended for a pedestrian. These devices often travel at perestly high speeds, weaving around walkers and putting the lives of pedestrians at risk. This week, Jerusalem-based news bureau, The Media Line, shared some revealing statistics about the surge in accident rates involving scooters and electric bikes. Shung the pedestrians' growing complaints that these devices are public safety risks isn't unfounded at all. According to numbers from the Central Bureau of Statistics Israel's official statistic keeping body, the number of people either killed or injured in accidents involving e-scooters surged by 440% between 2018 and 2022. This more than four-fold increase may be partially attributable to a surge in usage, but either way, it's a really worrying number. Last year alone, 2022, more than 1500 people in Israel were injured by accidents involving electronic scooters with 5 people being killed. E-bike casualties decreased slightly on 2021 levels, but there were still more than 2000 injuries and accidents reported across Israel during the year. A statistician at the Central Bureau of Statistics interviewed by The Media Line described the situation as getting worse and worse. With growing numbers of pedestrians being injured by these devices, it's reasonable to expect the calls to better regulate the use of micro-mobility solutions like these will get progressively louder during 2023 and beyond. Thanks to Channel Associate Marcus James for sharing this interesting story and to The Media Line for their original reporting.