Travelers on the northern stretch of Route 65 are greeted by the
shattered remains of car fenders and splintered glass from windows. Over the past two and a half years, 16 people and numerous cars have ended their lives on this 40-km stretch of road. Dozens of people were also injured on this fatal stretch of highway.

Route 65 is one of the major arteries that links the north of the country to its center, from the Kedarim Junction in the north to the Caesarea junction on the coastal highway. The road from Caesarea to Afula is 50 km-long and has four lanes. The traffic from Route 6 joins it at the Iron Junction. After Afula, the highway has a mere two lanes  one in each direction  and that is the fatal stretch.

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Yet another person was killed on Friday morning when 83-year-old Yosef Koren from Kibbutz Kfar Blum was traveling from north to south. About 200 km. from the Kadoorie Agricultural School junction, he swerved out of his lane, for an undetermined reason, and hit an oncoming truck. An ambulance that was called to the scene pronounced him dead. His body was trapped inside the car, which turned into a ball of squashed metal, and firemen from the Tiberias area had a hard time retrieving it from among the bits of plastic, glass and broken metal that were all that remained of the vehicle.

Police from the Amakim district are only too familiar with this blood-stained road. Superintendent Jack Dan and Chief Inspector Uzi Hadar of the traffic police were at the site of the accident within a short while, and it was immediately clear to them that the driver had swerved out of his lane.

"This part of the road is straight, and the infrastructure there is good;
there is a security barrier between the two sides of the road," says Dan. "But the moment that the driver crossed into the opposite lane when there was oncoming traffic, he did not have a chance."

Dan calls Route 65 "the road that does not know how to forgive." He says: "The traffic on this road is very heavy, and the fact that it has only one lane means that any swerve will end in a serious accident." The officers say it is imperative to widen the road, together with Route 66, as soon as possible.

The national traffic police are also aware of the problem and whenever there is a special enforcement campaign, Route 65 gets a place of honor. In the past month, a number of patrol cars have been stationed on the road in an attempt to catch drivers who pass at high speed when their field of vision is blocked.

Most of the road goes through the jurisdiction of the Lower Galilee Regional Council. Its head, Motti Dotan, who arrived at the scene Friday, called on the government to include widening of the road in its plan to strengthen the north. He said improvements to the route were already being made near the Beit Keshet junction. "There is a plan to widen the road between Afula and the Golani Junction," he noted, "and to make it a four-lane route. Work will begin in about three years. But the rest of the route, from the Golani junction to the Kedarim junction, is only in the first stages of planning."