No spot fines for unlicenced drivers

DRIVERS who move around without licences will be arrested with no option to pay spot fines, a senior police officer has said.

Such offenders will no longer be given time to produce the licences to traffic police at a later date, but will do so at the courts.

In an interview this week, the Officer Commanding Manicaland Police (Operations), Assistant Commissioner David Mahoya, said the move was meant to ensure that only licenced drivers remain on the roads.

He said unlicenced drivers were lying to traffic police that they would have left the licences at home and were very willing to pay spot fines.

"At the end of the day if we keep on fining these drivers and let them continue with their journey it means that our roads will be littered with unlicenced drivers. In such cases, spot fines will act as certificates to leave these people on the roads," he said.

Asst Comm Mahoya urged drivers who lost their licence discs to get new ones because "they will be greatly inconvenienced by traffic police on the highways."

"You will not pass through roadblocks. Actually, you will be arrested because no one knows whether you are licenced or not. So if you do not have the disc please do not sit behind the steering wheel."

Those found without licences will be taken to the nearest police station, dockets complied and the case taken to the courts for prosecution.

Asst Comm Mahoya said the rate at which road accidents were occurring in the province was alarming and uncalled for.

He said night roadblocks would be intensified to deal with errand motorists who are driving under the cover of darkness to conceal defects on their vehicles.

"If you take stock of accidents that occurred recently you will see that they were occurring at night. We have discovered that people with un-roadworthy vehicles are moving during odd hors to evade traffic police. We are not going to sleep and let criminals kill people unnecessarily at night. The law knows no time frame and we shall deploy at night.

"Church organisations have become culprits in that they are the ones embarking on journeys at night in overloaded buses. Why travel at night? Plan your journeys well on time to ensure safe travel. When passengers see traffic police they should not frown but should rejoice because these cops will ensure that they travel safely," he said.

Asst Comm Mahoya said overloaded vehicles would be stopped and excess passengers  dropped.

"The Rusape accident which happened two weeks ago and killed 20 people was because of overloading. The driver failed to control the bus after he tried to avoid stray cattle. Any overloaded public transport vehicle will be stopped and excess passengers will be dropped at whatever point the traffic cops will have bumped into the vehicle. This will be done even at night. So we are saying passengers should protest against kombi crew who overloads them. They should report to the police.

"There is no way the police will let an overloaded vehicle to continue with the journey because it is dangerous.

"In the same vein the public must report police officers that let go overloaded vehicles," he said.

Two weeks ago Manicaland topped the accidents chart with 24 people killed in the last week of September alone.

The accidents were attributed to stray cattle, speeding and overloading.