Defensive Driving Training for Traffic Officers

Since the beginning of the year, over sixty persons have lost their lives in almost three hundred road traffic accidents that have occurred. Today, a group of public officers from the Department of Transport, as well as the Belize City Traffic Department, was engaged in a defensive driving training at the Belize Institute of Management in Belize City. The event was organised by the Ministry of Economic Development under the Second Road Safety Project. Chief Executive Officer, Doctor Osmond Martinez spoke of the importance of the training in the wake of so many deaths resulting from road traffic accidents.

Osmond Martinez

Dr. Osmond Martinez, C.E.O., Ministry of Economic Development

“Between January and September of this year, we have seen around two hundred and eighty-eight traffic accidents of which around sixty to eighty-eight are fatal accidents. The loss of one life is too many and the life of sixty-eight is already overwhelming. I believe that we need to start to educate our drivers. It is our responsibility; it starts with me and you to be responsible on the road, to follow all the rules and regulations as drivers and to understand that a vehicle has the same potential as a weapon because it can injure and kill. And so what we are starting with the defensive driving among public officers and I believe there are some from the municipalities, but our hope is that it can expand to the private sector in the future.”

The training also featured first aid techniques for the officers and the idea is to replicate this model in other municipalities and hopefully it can be adapted in the private sector.