Avi Naor is one of those who founded the Israeli software
company Amdocs in the 1980s. He became very rich from the
success of the company, and retired three years ago at age
53. Now he is trying to lower Israel's traffic accident
rate.
Amdocs is one of Israel's five largest technology companies,
recently worth $5.3 billion on the stock market. Naor owns a
significant portion of that.
Naor told a reporter for Globes that he has set goals,
just as when running a business. The goals are numerical:
reduce the number of accidents from 500 a year to 250; reduce
serious injuries from 3,000 to 1,500, and cut the estimated
NIS 12 billion lost gross domestic product in half. Business
thinkers say that having a goal focuses the effort, and
formulating a clear one is an important step towards reaching
it.
So far, he has begun a nationwide billboard campaign that
says in Hebrew "Accidents aren't fate, they are failure!" He
is also using other media. The effort is run by the Or Yarok
(Green Light) Association, with a business plan.
"I invest $8 million a year, and will continue to do so for
the next five years," he said. "That is most of the group's
budget."
The annual budget of the government's National Authority for
Road Safety is NIS 160 million, about $36 million.
One of the key tools with which Naor will try to change the
situation is a $1 million annual advertising budget, being
handled by ad agency Adler-Chomski.
Naor's motivation is bitter personal experience, having lost
his son Ran in a car accident.
"I promise the public to keep conducting this battle with
this big financial investment, this intensity, for five
years," he says. Why five years? "I think that is how long it
will take us to lead the state to take responsibility for
what happens on the roads."
Naor's target audience isn't just the public. "The campaign
aims to pressure the national leadership to initiate a real
national plan to fight traffic accidents. The idea prevalent
among the general public is that traffic accidents are
unavoidable, fate. The government carries primary
responsibility for the situation. Legislative changes and
enforcing the existing law are what will bring about change.
Senior government officials claim endlessly that `You need
billions to conduct a real campaign against traffic
accidents' and that is simply not true. You need a much
smaller sum, but you also need true commitment."
Naor isn't just putting his money behind this, he's also
using his familiarity with senior figures in the Israeli
business world and recruiting acquaintances to his
operation.
"As part of the campaign, the retail chains have climbed on
board: any citizen who buys at Supersol, Club Market and Blue
Square will get, along with the bill, a form for joining the
Or Yarok petition, calling on the government to adopt and
implement a national plan against traffic accidents," Naor
says. "The retailers will set up a big box where citizens can
drop the forms in a slot."
Delek is also on board, with the company having provided 14
gas stations nationwide where petition stations will be set
up. According to Naor, the association has collected more
than 120,000 signatures so far.
The campaign calls on citizens to sign the petition, which
will be submitted to the Cabinet, and will be published for
the general public, Russian-speakers, the Arab population,
the national religious and ultra-Orthodox communities.
So far he has not sought, and has not received, any
rabbinical endorsement for his effort.
