Chinese Motorists Deliberately Killing Traffic Victims
Some drivers in China are allegedly killing pedestrians who they have hit with their cars to ensure they don’t have to pay expensive medical bills. A report from Slate details how the motorists are exploiting strange laws in the country that make it cheaper to kill a victim rather than leave them alive but injured.
Shockingly, there exists plenty of video evidence that shows the moments when drivers hit a person and then proceed to repeatedly run them over with their cars to ensure that they are dead. This includes elderly pedestrians and children as young as two, with motorists even shown on CCTV footage getting out of their vehicles and lining up their car to make sure that it will deal a killing blow.
Even though many residents are outraged by the deliberate killings, police forces and judges are often unwilling to prosecute drivers with serious murder charges. Instead, they accept pleas that the driver didn’t see the pedestrian or thought it was an inanimate object, such as a trash bag or piece of junk, and charge them with lesser crimes that only have small jail terms.
The bizarre practice comes about because the law in China dictates that when a driver is to blame for a collision, they are responsible for the medical fees of the victim, even if they run into huge amounts. Meanwhile, if they kill someone while driving they will generally only have to pay a small fine to cover the costs of the burial and provide some compensation to the family.
This makes it far more economical for a motorist to kill someone they hit with their vehicle rather than let them get medical attention. In fact, it has even led to some apparently killing victims who were reportedly uninjured for fear of large costs.
