The traffic lights at one of Belize City’s busiest intersections, Vernon Street and Central American Boulevard, are out of service once again. This marks the second time this year the lights have malfunctioned, and earlier today, the outage led to a collision between two vehicles just before noon. We spoke with Deputy Mayor Eluide Miller, who explained the cause of the latest breakdown and what’s being done to fix it. According to Miller, the city is working to restore the system as quickly as possible to prevent further accidents and traffic chaos.
Eluide Miller, Deputy Mayor, Belize City
“This time it has been caused by the major thunderstorm that we experienced last week Wednesday. The power surge caused one of the four cards in the system’s motherboard system to blow and we realized this during an inspection done the following morning, Thursday of last week. Since then we have been working with the technical people bringing in the necessary card. That part is scheduled to be in country this Friday. We anticipate that by the end of the day on Friday the light should be operational again. As you have highlighted this seems to be some recurrent, but each time it is beyond the control of the council. We are looking at measures to put in place to avoid this happening in the future. We are reviewing the option of adding power surge protectors. While it is the light is down, we do have traffic officers on the site at the intersection from six forty-five a.m. to six p.m. from Monday to Friday during the week. On the weekend e even have officers from eight a.m. to five p.m. and they assist traffic flows during peak hours. When the traffic is a bit lighter you will notice them observing or monitoring from a bit of shade. I also understand there was an incident earlier today at this very intersection. I must share that report has revealed that one of the motorist was using a mobile device while driving, which is illegal. So it is really important to clarify that the absence of a functioning light does not excuse reckless driving.”
