Online Reporter
YESTERDAY we carried a story of two kombi drivers who have been jailed for TWO years, within just one week.
We revealed that this is all part of a strategy by our law enforcement officers to pile on the pressure on this group of drivers from hell who have no respect for the rulebook.
We believe that the jailing of these two kombi drivers is expected to send a powerful message to their counterparts that the law will always prevail and when it catches up with them they will also feel its weight.
Tinashe Hwariro, a kombi driver from Murisa Village in Seke communal lands, was jailed for two years after being convicted of SEVEN counts of violating the Road Traffic Act following a series of accidents on the same day.
Hwariro pleaded guilty to two counts of negligent driving, one count of reckless driving, two counts of failing to stop after a serious road traffic accident and driving without a valid driver’s licence.
Chitungwiza magistrate Rutendo Mangwiro sent him behind bars for two years for all the offences.
Prosecutor Malvin Mwendera told the court that all the offences occurred on the same day, at around 7 pm, along an unnamed road in Chitungwiza’s Unit N suburb.
One of the victims, 49-year-old Pearson Kanzviti, was driving a Toyota Sprinter heading west along the road while Hwariro, who was driving a Nissan Caravan public service vehicle with registration number AHA 0156, was travelling east when the incident occurred.
According to Mwendera, Hwariro drove negligently by encroaching into Kanzviti’s lane, sideswiping his vehicle on the right side.
Instead of stopping, Hwariro fled the scene and collided with two other vehicles belonging to Fandress Mbazima and Kweri Prince.
Last week, another kombi driver, who drove a Toyota Hiace on a pavement along the Harare/Bulawayo highway and then turned into oncoming traffic after being confronted by the police, was also jailed for two years for reckless driving.
Paul Tsiga was fined US$100 for failing to comply with police orders. Police in Harare hailed the decision to punish the reckless motorist with a jail term.
The police said they were happy with the conviction of the motorists for reckless driving.
We agree with them and we believe that the more we get such cases where the kombi drivers are made to pay for their reckless driving then the better chances that we have that we will eventually tame the jungle in which they operate.
No one wants to go to jail.
These drivers from hell have been behaving as if they are not covered by the rules and regulations which govern road traffic.
They have been behaving as if they are above the law.
Once they start realising that they will go to jail, if they continue violating the rules and regulations, then there is a possibility that they will not continue with the madness which has become a big part of their operating procedure.
We need more of such convictions and people being sentenced to serve prison time.
Mathew Masinge