City traffic manager cracks down on license plates
Many Belizean drivers were blindsided this week when traffic and police officials at checkpoints established throughout the city informed them that the European style or personalized license plates on their vehicles were unauthorized and illegal. Some of those stopped were given a ticket on the spot and a few were even subjected to the physical removal of the plates. This afternoon, Belize City Traffic Manager Michael Godoy maintained to News Five that a notice had been published advising the public that any plates not issued by the City Council or Transport Department were illegal and had to be replaced with the authorized version. According to Godoy, this month’s action is only a preview of coming attractions because his department will be cracking down on infractions of the traffic code.
Michael Godoy, Belize City Traffic Manager
“There is no business that is authorised to produce these plates, or issue these plates. Any plates that are issued must be issued by the Department of Transport or the City of Belize. I will say that in the past, I believe there was a period when the city of Belize did not have plates and some individuals were told that they can go ahead and have some plates made. However, when the plates came in, they had to change back to the plates that were the authorised plates.”
“There are some areas where enforcement was kind of lax. You’ll find that the car dealers will be the next issue that will be blowing up pretty soon. I have met with a few of this morning and explained to them, it’s not that we are out to get anybody, it’s just that we want to ensure that procedures that should be followed are followed and that standards, we have to have standards in everything and we can’t have for example, some dealers who come in and pay to have current licenses, while there are some others that are photocopying and taking false certificates to the U.S. to purchase vehicles, because then that is bad for the guy who is paying, he’ll say, well, why should I pay. And the same goes for the license plates, if we have the ordinary man who has the standard plates and then he is saying but how come he has that plate, it’s because he has an S.U.V. he can have that. Everything has to be standard. And from here on, and since I’m on Channel Five, I guess I need to say that we will also be pursuing the registration of bicycles. As you probably noted, being in the news business, it seems like nearly all the crimes being committed are committed by people on bicycles… some of them would run off and leave the bicycles behind. So by having the bicycles registered, we’ll have a little better hold on what is happening with these criminals on bicycles.”
Godoy says he believes that most drivers who bought personalized plates still have their original plates in storage so they will have no difficulty in simply replacing one with the other. However, drivers who have lost their plates or did not pay for them during the period of shortage, must now pay fifteen dollars to receive the city’s authorized plates.
