Online Reporter
FOR the next two years, Harmony Duri, a 25-year-old kombi driver, will be calling Chikurubi Prison his temporary “lay-by”.
This chap apparently read a different version of the Highway Code.
Maybe it was an abridged edition for speed demons.
On February 20, around 9.30am, Duri decided that a red light near Borrowdale Village and Pomona shops was merely a suggestion, so he barrelled right through it.
With passengers on board.
Now, here is where the story gets delicious.
He was not caught by a traffic camera.
No! He was caught by a citizen. A motorist named Luisa Patricia Townsend, who did what any self-respecting, fed-up Zimbabwean should do: She filmed the nonsense and sent the evidence straight to the authorities.
That is right.
Kombi drivers, you are now being policed by every aunt, uncle, cousin and random stranger with a smartphone and a low tolerance for foolishness.
So what did the courts do? They handed Duri 30 months in prison. Six months were suspended for three years on condition of good behaviour, which means he will serve an effective 24 months. Two full years.
Let that sink in. You can get two years for ignoring a traffic signal that takes just seconds to change.
But let us be real: Duri is not the problem. He is merely a prison-bound symptom of a much larger epidemic.
Kombi drivers have turned our roads into a circus where the clowns are not funny.
These road warriors treat indicators like they are mythical.
They overtake on blind corners as if they have X-ray vision.
They stop in the middle of the highway to pick up a passenger who is still blocks away.
They swerve left and right like they have got ants in their pants.
But here is the thing.
Two years in prison for running a red light sounds harsh until you remember what could have happened. A mother on her way to buy vegetables. A child crossing the road after buying sweets. An entire family inside a car at that very intersection.
So, Duri now has 24 months to reflect on the Highway Code — the real one.
And when he gets out, we can only hope he finds a new career.
