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Mavis Johnson, International Road Safety Consultant
"It's many things. It isn't just one thing and that's the thing about road safety and improving the conditions on the road. We have to look at the roads themselves; the infrastructure, the signs and markings and I don't know if you've driven between Belize City and Belmopan at night, but it's so impressive now. You can actually see where the road goes, instead of just being in blackness. So some of those things; the shoulders on the sides have been improved. Again, one of the great things in development right now is the new round-about at the entrance in Belmopan. It's going to spectacular and then the Belmopan ring road which will provide plenty of opportunities for cyclists and pedestrians and car drivers to actually share the road together in a safe manner. So that's the infrastructure side, then of course you probably seen the two highway patrol vehicles out there and the two ambulances that are there to help people who have been involved in crashes. We also had work done in the schools, so we are bringing up children with a healthy attitude about traffic. It's often hard to change the attitudes of people when they are already mature. But when we can take them at 5-6 years old when they are still impressionable - that's when we want to influence their minds about the importance of being courteous to each other and what their role is as road user. They start as pedestrians, they become cyclists and then if they are fortunate, they don't take motor bikes, but they go into cars and so our future drivers will be so much better we believe."

"We are presenting right from the start to finish on this course information about traffic collisions, how they occur, how we can prevent them from happening and then giving them different pieces of information about the importance of medical system, about the effective enforcement, about the education program in schools and we are talking about the long term plan for road safety in Belize."

Johnson told us that Belize has made significant improvements along the demonstration corridor which runs from Belmopan to Belize City. But how about the Northern Highway? There have been a number of accidents resulting in fatalities on that highway this year - especially near Ladyville. Johnson told us that they are well aware of how dangerous that stretch of road is and that there are plans to extend the project.

Mavis Johnson, International Road Safety Consultant
"The corridor that was selected was selected based on many factors. It was the highest corridor for fatalities and injuries across the country. The benefit being that the projects and the programs are working well. And so having seen success there is a plan now to look at extending the next series of projects on the Northern Highway out from Belize City. So that we do start to pick up, because the collisions haven't reduced and so there is already plan in motion that there will be continued. So there will be improvements to the road, focused enforcement, awareness campaigns. The school work that started on the corridor, that could be shared with all school in Belize."

CD's with tutorials and information on road safety have been distributed to over 500 schools. Yesterday at the opening of the course, the CEO in the Ministry of Works discussed the success of the programme in reduced fatalities:..

Earl Gentle, CEO - Ministry of Works
"This project has been underway for almost 3 years and progress has been detected in lives saves from road traffic crashes and prevention of serious injuries. The road fatality figures of 2015 is showing the lowest number of road deaths on our demonstration corridor. From January 2015 to present, along the corridor, only 6 persons have died. Which represents approximately 9% of total road fatalities in Belize during this year."

The programs ran for two days and finished today.