by Colin Hyde
If GoB took over insurance for vehicles, the police and the Traffic Department would bring down the hammer on drivers and motorcycle riders who are looking for accidents. There’d be desks set up all over the country for people to report disrespectful drivers, and people would call the names of the infidels, because if we reduced traffic accidents, the cost of insurance premiums would go down.
There are people sneaking around in uninsured vehicles because they absolutely need to be on the road to earn their living, pay the bills and send their children to school. The reason that they don’t have insurance is because they can’t afford it. They are breaking the law, dangerously. They try hard to not get in accidents (unless they are utter fools or mentally deficient). Yes, the reason that the price of insurance is so high is because of recklessness on the highways and roads.
We know accidents will happen; our effort must be to keep them to a minimum, because they come with a high cost. Accidents cost life and limbs, and they require repairs to vehicles with parts and materials that must be bought with our foreign exchange because we don’t make them. Vehicle fires are rare, and few can pay for theft, if you can buy that type of protection. “Accidents” are what we pay for when we pay insurance companies.
The sinister capitalists will defend private insurance with the argument that, if government takes over the business, people who have no scruples will, for a fee, expose those who rat to those ratted on, and those ratted on would know who led the police and Traffic Department to single them out for discipline. We know, we know there is no perfect thing under the sun.
But I am not after insurance companies. I know they provide many good-paying jobs, and they pay when someone’s vehicle gets damaged or someone gets hurt in an accident. This bit is about our high accident rate. You have to study most things before making wholesale pronouncements. We don’t need any study to know that if GoB insured vehicles, the police and the Traffic Department would crack the whip.
You know a lot more Belizeans need to go and live in the States. If you want to play rich people’s high-speed games, yu can’t du it in a cash-poor country. Sure, some people have the money to play these kinds of games. These are Belizeans who have corralled the wealth. But get this: they only pay a portion when dehn du or cause “r” and a donkey. The rest of the cost goes on the people’s bill.
We really need to get the sense. Accidents will happen. We must keep them at the minimum.
What are PGee and Toledo East going to do about it
I really want to watch this election in Toledo East from a distance; but man, this thing joosi. One man can be boring; four men going after the same prize is high drama. I’ll sidestep the merits/demerits of the four aspirants, which I really know little of anyway. I won’t bother doing any researching there, because I’m the type of person who takes a real long time to form an opinion about people’s character and the true substance of their credentials, and by the time I completed that task the elections dust would have settled a long time ago.
Aha, we have an incumbent party (PUP) that all appearances indicate will sail on to another term come the next general election; a no-holds-barred battle among three for the right to represent the incumbent in the by-election to fill a seat for a maximum of one year; a UDP candidate who sails in without an apparent ripple in his party; about a month for the PUP aspirant that gets the nod to kiss and make up with the two who were denied, so the party has a united front on by-election day; and the UDP aspirant for the throne in PGee/Toledo East carrying a leader who has gobs of money, but the support of only one of the top five powerhouses in the party—that one being Mr. Peyrefitte.
About the gobs of dough, without the campaign financing laws, we’ll never know wherefrom comes the bankroll to pay Delroy to mouth and 7 to air. Even minds that mind their own business want to know which of the four, or combination—Barrow millions from their vault, an American named Combs, a British banker named Ashcroft, the producer of Snoa Wait an di 7 Dohaaf, Walt Disney—greases the UDP wheel.
I abruptly must end here today. You never drain all the juice from a good mango one siddong. Aha, it‘s the question on everyone’s mind, what PGee/Toledo East is going to do about it.
Ignore Smith, Silva; do it like Ranguy
Hello from here to Bismarck Ranguy, Sr., over there! I was thinking about the Toledo election, and that reminded me of your delightful story, Toledo Recollections. Boy, that book is packed with action, witchcraft, history, heroics, gun and machete brandishing, faith, the hard and noble work that goes into building a nation, the full package. And that reminded me that Don Hector says he has the full package too; but, as big as his mouth is, it appears he isn’t brave like Mr. Bismarck, to throw it all down.
Don Hector said he’s looked at this book thing all around, and it’s a poor money proposition. Ha, ha, I met the Mighty Lord Rhaburn, once. I can’t recall the full substance of our brief discourse, but I know it ended with him telling me that if he ever wrote a book he would make a mint off it. I bet Don Hector would hit it out of the park too. He and Rhaburn are in different fields, but they’re both giants with loads of chat.
Yu got to throw it down, Braa. I will advise you that if you insist that Lu-ih Sylvester was a saint, and all your colleagues gone before got a pass from Saint Peter without a blink, you’ll get the microscope with the extra magnification. But if you really feel they were misrepresented, well, it is right that you defend their names.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the deal here with Don Hector is that he has the common disease that afflicts all big people in Belize—resentment of challenges, the worthy and necessary criticism. But it could be that the real deal is that the lawyer, Godfrey Smith done gaan an write a book about George, a big feature with Don Hector. Yap, it’s possible Don Hector feels he got trumped by the smooth- talking/writing Smith.
I say, Don Hector has no need presently to fear Smith. What he has to be wary of is that Smith will get his hands on his story posthumously. Smith seems to have a lust to write about famous people who are gone, and Don Hector might one day get his face on our money, or a stamp. He already has an airport.
I’m presently struggling with the Smith story, Diary of a Recovering Politician, the lead chapter of which is, “The Billionaire [Ashcroft] Who Befriended Me” – hey, it’s not because the book is boring. Much blame goes to Philip Balderamos who gave me some books I absolutely MUST read, and Romel Cuello and Henry Young who gave me books that are longer than Penmarric. It is daunting to open those big ones. I’m reading them all, at the same time, and my reading sight has never been good. That’s the recipe for kyaahn done.
By the way, Philip, thanks to Mr. Naipual, I can find little to like about Mr. Biswas. There is so much to admire about his wife, Shama, and her family, but you have to exert yourself and look beyond the sticky picture of greasy children with Milo and condensed milk on their mouths and faces, and butter on their hands. I note the Britannica said of him, Naipaul, that he was very pessimistic.
Braa Hector, don’t balk because you mightn’t too like where the advice comes from; check the substance. I say, no fear; Hubert Elrington done tell us to not be fazed by glitter. Forget about impressing Assad and the rest of the intellectual gang from the ivory towers, and throw it down for us less illustrious folk.