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Courtney Weatherburne reporting
In just a couple of minutes, your life can end - just like that. Many people have died in accidents over the years.

Especially on the Western highway. Based on the statistics, the Western Highway was the deadliest stretch of road. But in 2013 the Road Safety project was launched to try and reduce the number of traffic fatalities on the highway.

Faith Cunningham, Monitoring & Evaluation Officer, Belize Road Safety Project
"The reason behind the project is actually based on statistics that was gathered in the period before 2013 which showed that on the Western Highway on what we call the demonstration Corridor."

"Between the roundabout at Belize City and the roundabout in the George Price Highway leading to the Hummingbird highway that we had 33 of 70 deaths occurring in that demonstration corridor. The project was then designed to implement several components which would then reduce this fatality rate. The project included, besides the infrastructure where you would see the improvements to the road along that corridor, an education and awareness component as well where we try to ensure that public awareness is increased."

And it seems the road safety project has been successful because the accident rate on the Western Highway has significantly dropped since 2013. And the records continue to show improvement because for the period January to July 2017, there has only been one accident this year.

Faith Cunningham
"Well so far based on the statistics that we have we have seen 45 fatal accidents with only one of those occurring in our demonstration corridor which equates to roughly 2% of the fatalities."

Courtney Weatherburne
"Could you compare that number to previous years?"

Faith Cunningham
"Well at the beginning of the project we were at roughly 50% of the accidents occurring on the demonstration corridor and over the past four years we have seen a drastic reduction where it had reduced to as you heard earlier 10%."

While there have been major advances in recent years, there is still more to work to do on the corridor.

UN Special Envoy for Road Safety Jean Todt made his first visit to Belize today, to sort of inspect the work that has been done but also to highlight some of those setbacks.

Jean Todt, UN Special Envoy for Road Safety
"Clearly a lot has been done and a lot needs to be done. I was quite impressed with a joint report about the situation of road safety even if we know as I say that a lot needs to be done. I had an experience coming from Belize City to here and this new road is definitely and the figures demonstrate, is a good step forward. I am convinced there is still margin for improving the situation."

"Law enforcement I feel it is probably the weakest point form what I have heard we need to have stronger road enforcement on the roads."

"The use of safety belt, has to be increased in the front, in the rear. Helmets, speeding is still not enforced as it should be, drunk driving I mean if a driver is taken driving drunk he should go to jail and his car should be taken away, if motorbike...texting and driving is also very dangerous and should be more policed."

And the Road safety team is aware that they need to tighten up on enforcement.

Faith Cunningham
"We also recognize that we have to work on the enforcement of these traffic safety measures and so the project over the past couple years had provided several enforcement training to the department of transport as well as the traffic officers."

"Which would then help with stronger enforcement in terms of the seat belt laws, the helmet laws and the speeding laws and so forth. We are also doing some legislative review to ensure we have the laws necessary to back these new enforcement tactics that will be employed."

While enforcement is very important, it really is up to the drivers and road users first and foremost, to ensure their own safety and that of their loved ones.

Todt left this afternoon. The Road Safety project concludes in February of next year. There are plans to extend this program to the Northern Highway- which has certainly had it's share of fatalities.