AmbergrisCaye.com Home Forums The Cayes Ambergris Caye Northern Road Report

I was thinking the other day on how safe would these speed bumps be without some street lighting. I know several carts have been rolled over by tourist on the "old" unpaved road. I could never figure out just how they managed that but I've seen two of the carts with my own eyes. Now after a few drinks they can really get their speed up for the speed bump that they will not be able to see at night.

I love the road but we have some problems here now that are going to have to be solved soon.

On a side note almost all of the workers are now using the paved road for their commute but there are a few who enjoy tearing up the beach on their bikes going as fast as they can go. On the places where the path is narrow this is real dangerous. I witnessed a near disaster early this morning pitting a full sized worker on his bike against an older tourist gentlemen on foot. He actually brushed against the older guy and then yelled at him to get out of the way. The pedestrian weighing in at 150 and the bike and rider at near double total weight plus the speed, it would have been serious. Thankfully these guys are in the minority and most are courteous and ride with reasonable caution.

Can anyone explain why the police will not use their radar guns and give out tickets? Tickets could pay for everything that is needed to slow down the traffic. What if it were made competitive and the traffic officer with the most tickets each week (in $'s) wins a prize? How about a % of what they ticket? Something - anything!

Never put a quota on tickets for the police. It will start with getting a ticket for 5 mph over the speed limit, then move to a ticket when you are driving the exact speed limit. Before its all over, you will be ticketed for driving under the speed limit. Golf carts don't have speedometers so each person's judgement of their speed will be a little different. I really don't want to visit and spend my whole vacation in a foreign traffic court.

Fast isn't the issue. The homemade speed bumps are causing folks to crash and get hurt no matter how fast. This guy caught his kickstand in a large rope Captain Morgans has laying in the road.

Elbert - you are mostly right - but until something official is done I'm afraid citizens will continue to take things into their own hands. Speeding is a BIG issue. I agree we don't have speedometers on our golf carts but the cars, motorcycles, taxis and trucks do. AND - even in a golf cart you know when someone is doing excessive speed.
Instead of arguing minutia here lets get together and demand at the very least basic traffic control.

I've heard of several instances when one of my friends have pointed out to the police up here that a person was speeding and to their credit the police went after them. Whether or not they were actually ticketed we are not sure but I think with a little push they would but this in check. We are not talking about 5 mph over the limit either. I've observed them doing 50. A speed limit of 15 probably isn't reasonable in some of the unpopulated straight a ways in the day light but 50 is nuts. This must be contagious because it is happening all over the Island.

For those of you on the road at night, notice how many bikes without even reflectors, never mind lights. At 50 you won't see them until you hit them.

Update on paving. Bad section in area behind Capricorn is being filled with hardcore now.

Speeding issue - I was nearly run off the road by a pickup truck traveling at excessive speed, driving down the middle of the road, headed straight at me. Not long afterwards it passed me again, going the other direction. I got the license number that time and called Traffic department. The official there knew the truck. Not sure what happened after, but he thanked me and said he would do something.

Speeding issue ... I agree with Elbert . speeding is happening on the whole Island , and people up north are upset with the new road only because they haven't had to deal with speeding in there back yard before . speed bumps only reduce speed at the bump itself. Really what we are talking about is safety . If the only option is speed bumps we will fail to improve the safety of the road . If golf carts don't have speedometers how can you ticket them ? I would think Ticketing anything with a speedometer like a taxi could be a great start . or require them to have speed limiters / GPS tracking . if there taxi was impounded for a minimum of a few days that would be very persuasive .

Casa - I totally agree and have objected to the speeding in town and down south. My question is how do we get the town to do anything?

Well, it seems the slow paced island life has graduated. At this point, it seems they now want to get there fast to do little.