As fear and repression mount in Zimbabwe because of Zanu PF’s pre-election jitters, what we don’t need is individuals and organisations forwarding unverified information.

Kubatana received this email from various sources about five times:

TALKING ON A CELLPHONE WHILE DRIVING
This is a update to warn all motorists that you will no longer be fined or given community service, if you are caught talking on your cell phone whilst driving.  Replacing the fine and community service is now JAIL.  You will be arrested and taken to Court, you will then be sentenced to between 2-3 weeks in jail, that is now the sentence, you will now have a conviction and a Police Record.  Please avoid using your cellphone when driving, as there is not monetary fine it is straight to Court.

To ascertain whether this information had any validity we contacted the Legal Resources Foundation who replied:

I was just talking to the LDC (Law Development Commission) Chairperson who categorically stated that as of Friday there was no such change in the law. It could be the Police deciding that they will not fine people but take them to court as a way of deterring cell phone use while driving BUT this is not to mean the law has changed.

Hitting the forward key is much easier than taking the time to verify information but its critical.

This entry was posted on December 7th, 2011 at 12:21 pm by Bev Clark and is filed under Activism, Governance, Reflections, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.