Hazel Marimbiza

A BULAWAYO magistrate has sentenced a Zupco bus driver to an effective two-year jail term for ramming into a crowd in an accident that killed two people and injured three others in the city recently.

Magistrate Nomsa Ncube also prohibited the driver, Rafael Moyo, from driving class one and two vehicles for the rest of his life and suspended him from driving other vehicles for six months. Moyo was facing culpable homicide charges.

The court heard that on January 17, 2022 at around 7pm along Herbert Chitepo Street between 10th and 11th Avenues, Moyo was driving a Zupco bus when he negligently hit five pedestrians, killing two while the other three sustained serious injuries. In her ruling yesterday, Ncube said from the evidence gathered, the accused was driving at an excessive speed as shown by the fact that he did not know how fast he was travelling.

“Witnesses corroborated in seeing the accused speeding and he further did not keep a proper lookout of the road ahead of him resulting in him hitting a pothole whilst he was driving. 

“The pothole collision with the bus was so violent as to cause such a fatal accident.

“Although potholes are one of the country’s major road challenges at the present moment and every driver in the country has come across them, an alert driver should have seen the pothole from a distance and navigated properly over it, but the accused person failed to do so thereby losing control of his bus,” said Ncube.

She said the accused was a public service vehicle driver who had undergone further training than any other drivers.

“He has also been trained in defensive driving to take reasonable steps to guard against the occurrence of accidents but the accused failed to take such steps.”