Corozal bus driver charged with manslaughter by negligence
Modesto Lizarraga
Forty-nine year old bus driver of Corozal Town has been charged with manslaughter by negligence four months after a traffic mishap claimed the life of sixty-two year old Jose Elmer Villanueva. On February twenty-fifth, the elderly man fell out of a Bluebird J and J commuter bus heading towards Orange Walk Town. The driver of the bus, later identified as Modesto Lizarraga, was served a Notice of Intended Prosecution and today he was formally arrested and charged and subsequently arraigned on four traffic offenses, including manslaughter by negligence. This afternoon, Lizarraga appeared unrepresented before Magistrate Herbert Panton where he was read three counts for indictable offenses. There was no objection to bail being granted to Lizarraga in the sum of two thousand, five hundred dollars, plus one surety of the same amount. Modesto Lizarraga is due back in court on August twenty-fifth.
When will the traffic department start requiring proper training for bus drivers? They are some of the most dangerous drivers on the roads, right there with GOB and taxi drivers. Speeding while driving unsafe vehicles, passing on hills, failing to maintain proper distance, overcrowding, and the list goes on and on. You see it every day and yet the police and traffic department just look the other way. How many deaths will it take? Where is the new Highway Patrol? Shameful!
Totally agree hatari-they should at least be minimum age of say 30 for some maturity-tehy stop on roads and block traffic, they speed around curves etc-we should have a law-any bus caught in an accident is off the road for 3 months and see how they will be more careful. Wake up GOB