Families of victims organise against drunk driving
It’s Belize’s number one cause of death, so I must be talking about heart disease, right? No. Cancer? Uh uh. Diabetes? Try again… Aha you say, must be murder. Nope… It’s traffic accidents that kill more Belizeans than any other single cause. And far too many of those fatal–and non fatal–collisions are rooted in drunks behind the wheel. Today I spoke to family members and community activists who say that the time has come to stop the madness on the nation’s streets and highways.
Alejandro Chan Sr., Father
“My lee son, I never believe he would finish his life like that.”
Janelle Chanona, Reporting
Today the family of fifteen-year-old Alejandro Chan is still in a state of shock and disbelief. On Friday, the teenager was killed by a drunk hit and run driver near his home in Orange Walk Town. He was the eldest of seven children.
Alejandro Chan Sr., Father
“He is a young boy that never, no time he give me trouble. So his pride was always willing to study hard. So he seh that, “when I get big, Dad, when I finish my education I will help my rest of my little brothers.”
This morning the Chan family gathered at the morgue of the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital to collect the body of their loved one. Hurt and angry, Alejandro Chan Sr. had a message for his child’s killer… and every other drunk driver.
Alejandro Chan Sr.
“Watch me good. Right now you are watching me. I want mek you feel, just imagine how I feel here in front of this morgue here in Belize. If I was the driver and your son was the deceased, just imagine how you would feel at this moment. You broke up hearts. You broke my wife’s, his grandmother’s, his little brothers’, all the family, his cousins. I wah mek you know, God will punish you one of these years. I know that. I believe in that, that God got something for you.”
Determined not to let their child become another statistic, friends and family are doing something for Alex. They are calling on the families of other victims to join PADD: Parents Against Drunk Drivers.
Donni Urbina, Cousin of Deceased
“Pretty much, drunk driving needs to stop here within the country. Pretty much as well, the people, the family, the country, the political leaders can really make a change.”
Antoinette Young, Coordinator, PADD
“Do something about men and women who get behind the wheel as drunk drivers. I personally believe this is premeditated murder, because the moment they step into a bar, the moment they have more than two or three alcoholic beverages, automatically they are killing someone. They know that they will be killing someone. We need to do something about it. Parents I am asking you, stand up with me.”
“I would like to see more speed bumps, I would like to see laws change so that the people that commit these crimes. Just don’t give them bail, they commit a crime, they commit murder and within twenty-four hours they are walking the street, freedom for another drink, freedom for another stick of weed, freedom for another piece of crack. No! That’s not?we need to stop that. We really and truly need to stop that.”
In the last week alone, there has been two other hit and run accidents involving drunk drivers: one more from the Orange Walk District and another in Belize City. Arrests have been made in all three cases, but tonight police admit that today, there are more drunk drivers are on the nation’s highways than ever before.
G. Michael Reid, Police Press Officer
“We are definitely going up as far as the number of incidences and the number of deaths, and it’s alarming. The commissioner is quite concerned. The department is doing everything possible to bring this in check, but it requires a lot of participation on the part of the members of the community, adherence to the law as it pertains to drunk driving, speeding and other traffic offences.”
“Enough cannot be said, we need to educate our drivers, our people on a whole. Janelle, it goes past the drunk driving, it’s a part of our culture where it seems that alcohol is really messing up our people. We need to understand the damage that is being done here.”
Last Friday, another traffic accident, believed to have been caused when a car ran the stop sign at the corner of Dean Street and Amara Avenue, claimed the life of thirty-six year old sanitation worker Samuel Yarde. As his friends and family gathered at the morgue, they joined the Chan’s cause for stricter penalties for traffic offenders.
Jennifer Blease, Sister-in-law of Deceased
Every time pan the news you hear they knock down this one, they knock down that one and all you hear dah manslaughter by negligence. I think they suppose to bring out wah ‘nother law or something that find a better way fu deal with them because they charge them and then they get bail, you know and then they deh out tomorrow and weh Samuel deh now? Samuel deh inna the morgue.”
Once the schedule of PADD organisational meetings has been finalised, that information will be dispersed to the public via the media.
