And, Williams says the Department is also attuned to the public cries for greater and more effective highway patrols to intercept drunk drivers and other lawbreakers.
But he says complaining commuters can't have it both ways:
Chester Williams, CEO - Transport
"Our Belizean people, some of us are so and so like, undecisive. right? You hear everybody say police and transport need to do more enforcement. "We need to see you more on the highway." And the minute we're on the highway doing enforcement you hear "you all have too many police checkpoints, too much this, too much that." Come on. We need to decide what we want in life. Right?"
"Over the past four, five months. We have done a lot in terms of enforcement along with the police. And that has translated to a reduction in the amount of traffic fatalities on highways. Yes, we need to do more."
"But as I've said before, that we are limited in human capacity. DOT only have 40- something officers. Of that 40- something officers, majority of them are engaged in administrative work, dealing with the issuance of driver's license, the issuance of motor vehicle registration, motor vehicle, motor vehicle licensing, inspection and the like. And that's the reason why we are also proposing to cabinet to increase the number of traffic officers to 200."
"If we increase the number to 200, we will be able to maintain 24 hours highway patrols on our highways. And this again will translate to more effective enforcement, which will translate to saving more lives."
"We do not want to do too much stagnant checkpoints. Yes, the highway patrol will do periodic checkpoints in different areas. Right?But we want to do highway patrols. Exactly what you said there. If the highway patrol is on the highway and encounter a vehicle or a motorcycle committing an infraction, then they are going to follow that vehicle, follow that motorcycle, pull them over and deal with them, as opposed to conducting highway, checkpoints on the highway, stopping every vehicle that comes to the checkpoint and at the same time holding back people who need to get from point A to point B within a certain period of time."
