NDACC warns drivers about drinking
This Easter weekend the highways will be extremely busy as Belizeans travel to their vacation spots for the four-day holiday.
It is also a busy time for the National Drug Abuse Control Council, Transport Department and the Police. These agencies are working together to make our roadways a safer place to travel. One way the message is being sent is through road safety checks. The exercise is part of NDACC’s ongoing campaign against drunk driving and alcohol abuse. This afternoon the team manned three strategic locations in Belize City and News Five caught up with one group at the corner of Orange and Albert streets.
Marlon McNab, Belize District Coordinator
“What we do is hand out information to the general public and to drivers and to pedestrians if they request it. This information is basically about the general dangers of drinking alcohol and also drinking under the influence and driving. This is the campaign that we’ll be running annually and we’ll be doing it three times for the year now. We’re gonna be doing it at the Christmas season, for the Easter season and also for the September celebrations. Why we do it at those times? It simple because we believe that a lot of the drinking takes place around the celebration time and stuff like that. And not only that drinking takes place, but a lot of the road accidents are as a result of drinking and at these times, it is at their peak because of the abuse in the home. We think a lot of the…well we don’t think, but we know from statistics given to us by other agencies, that a lot of abuse takes place within the home when the partner is under the influence of alcohol.”
Det. Fitzroy Yearwood, Ag. Public Relations Officer, Police
“Being that we take care of road traffic accidents and so forth, or job is that we are trying to reduce the traffic accidents rate on the highways. So we have our youth corps out here along with the zone beat liaison officers and Sgt. Pitts and if you notice, we have representatives from the Traffic Department, whereby we are actually going out there handing out these flyers and bumper stickers. Because we believe that if we get out here and communicate with the drivers, maybe this year other than all the others we could reduce the traffic accident rate on the highways and also within the city.”
McNab says they believe the campaign has been effective. In December when it was launched there was only one fatal traffic accident and since then the number of serious accidents has been low. McNab says because of the success they have had with the campaign, they now plan to hold similar activities three times throughout the year.
