Why many drivers in China intentionally kill the pedestrians they hit

[Deleted]

Source: http://news.nationalpost.com/news/wo...rians-they-hit

In April a BMW racing through a fruit market in Foshan in China’s Guangdong province knocked down a 2-year-old girl and rolled over her head. As the girl’s grandmother shouted, “Stop! You’ve hit a child!” the BMW’s driver paused, then switched into reverse and backed up over the girl. The woman at the wheel drove forward once more, crushing the girl for a third time. When she finally got out from the BMW, the unlicensed driver immediately offered the horrified family a deal: “Don’t say that I was driving the car,” she said. “Say it was my husband. We can give you money.”

It seems like a crazy urban legend: In China, drivers who have injured pedestrians will sometimes then try to kill them. And yet not only is it true, it’s fairly common; security cameras have regularly captured drivers driving back and forth on top of victims to make sure that they are dead. The Chinese language even has an adage for the phenomenon: “It is better to hit to kill than to hit and injure.”
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“Double-hit cases” have been around for decades. I first heard of the “hit-to-kill” phenomenon in Taiwan in the mid-1990s when I was working there as an English teacher. A fellow teacher would drive us to classes. After one near-miss of a motorcyclist, he said, “If I hit someone, I’ll hit him again and make sure he’s dead.” Enjoying my shock, he explained that in Taiwan, if you cripple a man, you pay for the injured person’s care for a lifetime. But if you kill the person, you “only have to pay once, like a burial fee.” He insisted he was serious—and that this was common.

Most people agree that the hit-to-kill phenomenon stems at least in part from perverse laws on victim compensation. In China the compensation for killing a victim in a traffic accident is relatively small—amounts typically range from $30,000 to $50,000—and once payment is made, the matter is over. By contrast, paying for lifetime care for a disabled survivor can run into the millions. The Chinese press recently described how one disabled man received about $400,000 for the first 23 years of his care. Drivers who decide to hit-and-kill do so because killing is far more economical. Indeed, Zhao Xiao Cheng—the man caught on a security camera video driving over a grandmother five times—ended up paying only about $70,000 in compensation.
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These drivers are willing to kill not only because it is cheaper, but also because they expect to escape murder charges. In the days before video cameras became widespread, it was rare to have evidence that a driver hit the victim twice. Even in today’s age of cellphone cameras, drivers seem confident that they can either bribe local officials or hire a lawyer to evade murder charges.

Perhaps the most horrific of these hit-to-kill cases are the ones in which the initial collision didn’t injure the victim seriously, and yet the driver came back and killed the victim anyway. In Sichuan province, an enormous, dirt-encrusted truck knocked down a 2-year-old boy. The toddler was only dazed by the initial blow, and immediately climbed to his feet. Eyewitnesses said that the boy went to fetch his umbrella, which had been thrown across the street by the impact, when the truck reversed and crushed him, this time killing him.

Despite the eyewitness testimony, the county chief of police declared that the truck had never reversed, never hit the boy a second time, and that the wheels never rolled over the child. Meanwhile, one outraged website posted photographs appearing to show the child’s body under the truck’s front wheel.

In each of these cases, despite video and photographs showing that the driver hit the victim a second, and often even a third, fourth, and fifth time, the drivers ended up paying the same or less in compensation and jail time than they would have if they had merely injured the victim.
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Both China and Taiwan have passed laws attempting to eradicate hit-to-kill cases. Taiwan’s legislature reformed Article 6 of its Civil Code, which had long restricted the ability to bring civil lawsuits on behalf of others (such as a person killed in a traffic accident). Meanwhile, China’s legislature has emphasized that multiple-hit cases should be treated as murders. Yet even when a driver hits a victim multiple times, it can be hard to prove intent and causation—at least to the satisfaction of China’s courts. Judges, police, and media often seem to accept rather unbelievable claims that the drivers hit the victims multiple times accidentally, or that the drivers confused the victims with inanimate objects.
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And last month the unlicensed woman who had killed the 2-year-old in the fruit market with her BMW—and then offered to bribe the family—was brought to court. She claimed the killing was an accident. Prosecutors accepted her assertion, and recommended that the court reduce her sentence to two to four years in prison.

This light sentence would still be more of a punishment than many drivers have received for similar crimes. But it probably won’t be enough to keep the next driver from putting his car in reverse and hitting the gas.

[Silhouette of Seraphim]

I always said if I ever hit some Harryy Hippy on a bike because he was riding like an asshole, I'm probably going to have to kill him.

[Socialhealer]

wow china is fucking disgusting, 50,000$ compensation?, lol if you kill my 1 year old daughter i'm taking the $50,000 and killing your entire fucking family, murder is murder if you reverse over them you're intending to kill them, how the fuck is their justice system so fucked up that using a car to kill someone is fine, but a gun or a knife is different?

[Aeula]

Well, at least it'll teach pedestrians to be more careful around cars, pedestrians and cyclists where I live are complete arseholes, they walk blind over the street or hold up traffic to talk to someone in a car in the middle of the road. They won't do that as much if they realise drivers will kill them if they hit them.

Also lowers the chance of insurance fraud for those who intentionally throw themselves in front of cars.

[Garnier Fructis]

wow china is fucking disgusting, 50,000$ compensation?, lol if you kill my 1 year old daughter i'm taking the $50,000 and killing your entire fucking family, murder is murder if you reverse over them you're intending to kill them, how the fuck is their justice system so fucked up that using a car to kill someone is fine, but a gun or a knife is different?

What kind of degenerate scumbag murders the family members, who are all innocent, to get back at the guilty guy?

I sure hope my cousins never kill anyone, lest I get killed as a result.

[JohnBrown1917]

>dirt-encrusted truck knocked down a 2-year-old boy. The toddler was only dazed by the initial blow, and immediately climbed to his feet. Eyewitnesses said that the boy went to fetch his umbrella, which had been thrown across the street by the impact, when the truck reversed and crushed him, this time killing him.


The fuck?

[I Push Buttons]

I always said if I ever hit some Harryy Hippy on a bike because he was riding like an asshole, I'm probably going to have to kill him.

If you were in China that might work... Wrongful death is pretty costly in the US, if that is where you are. Here you have to pay for the cost of their care up until they die (if applicable), so if it takes them five years to die... Then there are the damages for the pain and suffering for their families, plus some states let the families sue you for lost income and other forms of bereavement.

---

On topic, all I can think of that would stop them from killing people is to increase the penalty for wrongful death by a shit ton. "Hit to kill" is abhorrent, but its understandable... $30,000 settlement/fine versus a lifetime of paying for the care of someone. An easy decision for most if they have no risk of being caught/punished...

Especially in China. The bystander effect has gone to the next level over there due to their lack of good Samaritan protection and it seems like it has left many undervaluing the lives of those around them.

[JohnBrown1917]

What kind of degenerate scumbag murders the family members, who are all innocent, to get back at the guilty guy?

I sure hope my cousins never kill anyone, lest I get killed as a result.

People like(Socialhealer) that are no better than those people killing others for economic reasons.

[Socialhealer]

What kind of degenerate scumbag murders the family members, who are all innocent, to get back at the guilty guy?

i'd consider myself no longer human if someone purposely ran over my child multiple times just to save some money, so i'd teach them what the real value of money is compared to family.

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People like(Socialhealer) are no better than those people killing others for economic reasons.

i've done nothing at all, yet you compare me to these people, you realise you have to actually commit a crime right?

[Garnier Fructis]

i'd consider myself no longer human if someone purposely ran over my child multiple times just to save some money, so i'd teach them what the real value of money is compared to family.

Yea, I'm not going to die because of some retard-level thinking like this.

[Raamm]

Here's the problem with this the same thing is true in the U.S. comparatively we honestly just don't like to admit it. I mean the cost of permanently disabling a person is astronomical. If walmart crushes your back with a pallet of cereal and you cant walk ever again they're out 400,000-1,000,000$ if they crush you to death with a pallet of cereal they're out 250,000-500,000 insurance companies have a bunch of charts and graph that price how much injuries cost and what not and sometimes being dead costs less.

[JohnBrown1917]

i'd consider myself no longer human if someone purposely ran over my child multiple times just to save some money, so i'd teach them what the real value of money is compared to family.

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i've done nothing at all, yet you compare me to these people, you realise you have to actually commit a crime right?

You're willing to commit it.

[Deleted]

well in china you're just one of 2 billion people, expendable.

[Deleted]

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=278_1318911790

nothing to add.

[Socialhealer]

You're willing to commit it.

some people are willing to kill others for $50,000, or $100,000 because they're poor, are they disgusting scum or just poor people with nothing left in life, while rich people who have no monetary issues you'd see as perfectly good people.

[JohnBrown1917]

some people are willing to kill others for $50,000, or $100,000 because they're poor, are they disgusting scum or just poor people with nothing left in life, while rich people who have no monetary issues you'd see as perfectly good people.

And that justifies killing innocents men/woman?

[Socialhealer]

And that justifies killing innocents men/woman?

no i'm making a point of the extreme things people would do even though they would never imagine it would happen to them, such as these drivers, i mean they are literally going whoops i didn't see you, but now i'm going to crush your skull with my vehicle to save myself money, not even checking if the person is ok literally going i ain't paying that, DIE!

edit: ultraxion number 86, still being a selfish bastard.

[JohnBrown1917]

Yea, I'm not going to die because of some retard-level thinking like this.

Funny how similiar it is to those drivers.

[Natrii]

I honestly see no value in human life. Granted I do not encourage letting it just be tossed away in this manor all for the sake of money. It seems seems it would be more cost effective to end the life that has ended a life.

[jackofwind]

Granted I do not scourge letting it just be tossed away in this manor all for the sake of money.

Wat.

/10char