A 34-year-old man has started serving an 18-month jail term for skipping a red traffic light after being refused permission to appeal, the Star newspaper reported on Tuesday.
”The way people disregard the law .. it has become endemic. Perhaps it’s high time for someone to go to jail [for this offence],” said Judge Herbert Msimang in the Durban High Court.
Sizwe Shezi, a machine operator, was convicted earlier this year of reckless and negligent driving.
This was after he used a turning lane to overtake a queue of three cars at a busy intersection before jumping the red light.
Two traffic officers stopped him and told him he would be arrested, after which he sped off. He was arrested later in the day.
Shezi pleaded not guilty to the charge but the magistrate in the Nyoni Periodical Court rejected his explanation that he was speeding to his sick wife.
Magistrate SJ de Lange sentenced him to three years in jail, suspending half of the sentence for five years.
Judge Msimang rejected his appeal last month.
Shezi started serving his sentence at Mtunzini Prison last month. – Sapa