PM Proposes to Tighten Enforcement of Traffic Laws

The recent wave of fatal traffic accidents has left many families and friends heartbroken, prompting calls for better infrastructure. Last Saturday, a tragic head-on collision on the George Price Highway, between San Ignacio and Benque Viejo, claimed ten lives, including a motorcyclist who crashed into one of the vehicles. Just a week earlier, in Orange Walk District, a student from Ocean Academy High School lost his life when the van he was in suffered a blowout, veered off the road and flipped multiple times. In response, Cayo North Area Representative Michel Chebat announced on Thursday that the Benque Road will be rebuilt. Today, Prime Minister John Briceño presented the first measures the government is taking, not only to protect lives but also to support first responders who face the traumatic aftermath of these accidents.

 

Prime Minister John Briceño

“We also have to find whatever help we can give our first responders some kind of counseling. So I asked the Minister of Health, you know, to see what arrangements we can – and he could speak also with the Minister responsible, Minister Habet, to put some kind of program so we can help these first responders. I think it was kind of distasteful for people to hurry put up the pictures of the people that died, not how they looked, but how they looked when they were alive to say that this person is dead. And without no consideration of the trauma that the family is going through. And maybe we need to find some kind of – I hate to put it this way, some kind of legislation to prevent this kind of things from happening. In many instances you don’t even know what happened and then somebody on social media already blasts what happened and in some instances it’s not even the right information. But, I think that generally our country came together during, and still during this difficult period. But too many Belizeans are dying as a result of road traffic accidents. And too frequently, these tragedies could have been avoided if we had less reckless drivers. And we really need to see how we could tighten it so that when people know better, that if you drive under the influence and get in an accident, that we are going to come at you.  In the terms of enforcement, we’ve also tasked the Ministry of Transportation to establish more around the clock – 24-hour highway  surveillance, but to put more effort into  At night, because most of the time it’s at night when people drive after they come from a party or they are drinking to see how we could control or stop as best as we possibly can these driving under the, under the influence. We have to amend the laws for the use of speed guns, breathanalyzers and dash cams. It will also be made to equip war officers with the requisite tools to bring offenders to justice.”