Roaming Tel Aviv’s sidewalks is no walk in the park, especially with a young child in tow. By Debbie Herdan.

I have lived in the center of Tel Aviv for 4 years, during which I have spent countless hours walking these sidewalks with my son Ruby, who is now four and a half years old.

In Tel Aviv, the sidewalk can be a treacherous place. Case in point: the large and small piles of smelly dog kaki (poop) that grace the city’s narrow sidewalks, often making passage difficult. In summertime, really odiferous garbage spills can make sidewalk discomfort into something unbearable.

Recently, I elevated yet another sidewalk nuisance to the top of my list. I used to think of the tustus (motor scooter) as a noisy and polluting nuisance in the streets, and an inconvenience when parked on valuable sidewalk space. Over the last year, however, my son and I have had several encounters with oncoming tustus riders while we were walking peacefully on the sidewalk. In all of the encounters, I noticed that the tustus drivers were skirting one way streets and attempting to defy traffic laws by using the sidewalk as their route of passage.

The tustus problem has been becoming ever more common and threatening. In a recent five day period, my son and I had three separate encounters with tustus drivers on Tel Aviv’s sidewalks.

None of them ended as badly as last Tuesday, when I walked my son in his stroller on the southouth side of Borochov (a one way street) at about 3:30pm. Late for a doctor appointment, we were walking quickly up the narrow sidewalk when suddenly a tustus came roaring down the sidewalk from Melchett (the wrong direction for motor vehicles).

As we were in his immediate path, I asked the tustus driver to stop and get off the sidewalk. “This is not a street, it’s a sidewalk,” I told him, “Get off.” In response, he actually began moving toward us, and threatened to run me over. I threatened to call the police. He called me “crazy” and told me “You are not a police officer.”

My son was getting very upset. I pushed the top of the man’s tustus away from me, yet he still did not move, and even continued to inch closer. When I finally decided to move out of his way, the tustus driver actually reached over and slapped my left cheek. As he drove away, I attempted to catch the numbers on his license plate and managed to give his bike a small kick. He cursed me and kept driving the wrong way down our sidewalk.

On Friday evening, my son and I set out to buy a few items for Pesach at a store on King George. We were happily walking down the sidewalk on Rashi (another one way street), when once again we found ourselves face to face with another tustus driving the wrong way up the sidewalk. My son immediately shouted “Mommy!” and grabbed me tightly. While blocking his path, I shouted at the driver that his tustus doesn’t belong on the sidewalk. This time, the man actually responded “you’re right,” before somehow managing to get around us and speed away.

As I was trying to catch his license number, tustus number two approached, on the sidewalk of course. We were incredulous that this could happen twice in the space of 5 minutes. My son shouted “Mommy, another tustus!” and pulled me tight again. I repeated my mantra to the driver that his tustus doesn’t belong on the sidewalk, and his female passenger said “you’re right” before they too wiggled around us and drove away.

The second tustus happened to stop halfway up Rashi, where it parked on the sidewalk. I backtracked and approached the driver with my son, calmly telling him that all we want is peace when we walk on the sidewalk, and that now my son gets terrified every time a tustus passes by. The man responded blankly that he doesn’t care. I snapped his picture while he leaned on his tustus, coyly dragging on his cigarette.

My son actually freezes in fear a little bit every time we’re walking on a sidewalk and hear a tustus go by. I have to check and locate it on the street and then reassure him that the tustus is not on the sidewalk and that we’re ok.

Recently I locked my bike behind our building and my son stayed in front on the sidewalk looking for a street cat that he likes to pet. As my son was out of sight, a troubling thought entered my mind. What if some defiant lawbreaker on a tustus comes barreling down our sidewalk and my son is playing in front, and I’m momentarily not standing there to protect him? It would be as if I sent him to cross the street by himself. How can I assure my son and myself that this won’t happen?

I am ready to fight for peace on the sidewalks of Tel Aviv, to make them a reasonably nuisance-free and totally motor vehicle-free place for children and adults to enjoy. I plan to take the issue to the police and to City Hall, and hope for a response.

Debbie Herdan is an American living in Tel Aviv. A nurse midwife by profession, she leads a pregnant and new mom outreach group for African refugees in Tel Aviv.