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Why drivers in China intentionally kill the pedestrians they hit

237 points by fhinson 11y ago

mikerichards 11y ago
Holy cow, that's some messed up shit. I've never heard of such a thing. And that they're getting slaps on the wrists if any punishment at all because cops are believing their insane stories. What a cultural mess.
- dmm 11y ago
  When a pedestrian or cyclist is killed by a car in the US, so long as the driver is not drunk and does not leave the scene, the driver will almost never face criminal penalties. What we call car accidents are considered an unavoidable part of life to be resolved by civil courts and insurance payouts. I'd say say the US has a cultural mess regarding cars too.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - maerF0x0 11y ago
    Its crazy to me that California requires so little coverage, on the order of 30k. If you wipe out the sole bread winner of a household, they can expect to make something like 1yr or less of replaced income. In other countries, say canada, insurance minimum can be 1M .
    - tsotha 11y ago
      The fact that you don't have a lot of insurance doesn't mean you're not liable for damages. If you hit someone with $30k insurance in CA and the court awards them $1M, you still owe $970,000.
      - maerF0x0 11y ago
        Would bankruptcy absolve you of that though? Or is it one of those long term things where they'll garnish your wages as much as they can? In Canada if you get in a bad accident w/o insurance the government fronts the money and then uses its power to garnish wages/make your life hell to collect as much as it can.
        tsotha 11y ago
        Bankruptcy doesn't erase a court judgement, though it might make it easier if you stiff your other creditors. The state doesn't front the money, and the court will garnish your wages and any assets you may acquire until your dying day. And after, come to think of it.
  - nkozyra 11y ago
    Even if this is true - and I'd suggest it could use some support - it's a bit different than realizing post-accident that the victim is still alive and then intentionally murdering them.
  - argonaut 11y ago
    This is terrible trope that keeps coming up. When something bad happens in a country, just because you claim the US has the same problem does not at all ever make it acceptable. It's a total non sequitur. And that's without even mentioning the fact that 1) the people in the article actually fled the scene, 2) many of them got out of the car and ran over the person again, 3) in the US you will in fact face penalties if you are deemed to be negligent in some way (you were speeding, didn't have a license, etc.)
    - hga 11y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism And yes, in the US, if you are negligent, you will be facing criminal and civil penalties, in a legal system where guanxi is much less likely to aid you.
      - deleted 11y ago
        [deleted]
  - mc32 11y ago
    These are really not comparable situations at all. If you ever lived there you'd know you're comparing two very different attitudes. If you were in an unfortunate accident where you're involved with hitting a cyclist or pedestrian, there are certain rules and expectations, right of way, deference to smaller modes of transportation, etc. There the bigger the vehicle the bigger the deference by smaller vehicles by tradition and necessity, it's completely opposite. In addition, you would know that sidewalk and street are one and the same in most places. And the occurrence of backing up to purposely e sure terminal injury is not uncommon in the least. It's in the news, it's quite ordinary.
  - adventured 11y ago
    You're comparing completely different scenarios, trying to paint the US in an artificially bad light. If you intentionally drive over a pedestrian multiple times to try to kill them, you're going to prison potentially for decades. One scenario is purely an accident, the other is intentionally trying to make sure you murder the pedestrian.
    - prapam2 11y ago
      What if driver has some issue with someone and intentionally drives over him (no alcohol or drugs on the driver), can they get away with it?
  - ryanackley 11y ago
    Can you cite sources or any basis at all for this conclusion? An acquaintance of mine was speeding and killed someone. He went to jail for a couple of years. No alcohol or drugs were involved and he didn't leave the scene. He was going something like 80 in a 55mph zone.
    - gburt 11y ago
      I'm not the OP, but some data here: http://freakonomics.com/2014/05/01/the-perfect-crime-a-new-freakonomics-radio-podcast/ http://freakonomics.com/2014/05/01/the-perfect-crime-a-new-f...
    - y2c 11y ago
      http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/10/opinion/sunday/is-it-ok-to-kill-cyclists.html http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/10/opinion/sunday/is-it-ok-to... has a bunch of examples (though does not link to sources). Quote from this article: '“We do not know of a single case of a cyclist fatality in which the driver was prosecuted, except for D.U.I. or hit-and-run,” Leah Shahum, the executive director of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, told me.' Big ones off the top of my head: - Amelie de Moullac: police found driver at fault, DA refused to prosecute - Charles Vinson: driver ran a red light. Vinson also technically ran a red, but had the walk signal. Vinson was found at fault; driver not even 50% fault. These are pretty SF-specific examples, but I don't think it's an SF-specific phenomenon.
  - mikerichards 11y ago
    Yes, we all understand that stupid little non-analogy that you US haters use. The template is as follows: Something bad happens in some other country. The America hater immediately responds with something that the US does that is usually nothing at all to do with the point of the story. Yes, we understand your retarded tactics. Try again.
    - x0 11y ago
      Yep. As a non-American, it gets a little boring when people keep bringing America up in threads that aren't about America.
- mc32 11y ago
  This is most definitely true. It's because a lifetime of compensation is most of the time more money than a single flat payment for causing death. I know of one foreigner who upon accidentally injuring a pedestrian, non too seriously, was advised by his expat friends to get on the first available flight out on the double. Staying would have involved a victim exaggerating injuries and extorting a foreigner for life. So he went to the bank got some money and beelined it to the airport. Not even going back to his flat to pick up things, except for a friend picking up his passport. Sad perverse incentives. Of course he can never go there again as he's officially a fugitive.
- istvan__ 11y ago
  Yet it is terrible. Almost as bad as driving without a license plate so you hit and kill somebody you can flee the scene and nobody would be able to identify you. But that does not happen, right? http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-laz-rear-license-plates-20141203-story.html http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-laz-rear-license-plate...
- PeterWhittaker 11y ago
  I do not understand the downvoting of this post. It is messed up. Completely messed up. Downvote if you disagree. But please do 'fess up to the fact that you downvoting because you think it is OK to transform an accident into homicide.
  - bottled_poe 11y ago
    People a down-voting because the comment uses an appeal-to-emotion to vilify an entire culture.
    - paulhauggis 11y ago
      Found the asshole that down voted it.
      - dang 11y ago
        > Found the asshole We've asked you many times to abide by the HN guidelines when commenting here. Instead you've been breaking them worse. Since you won't follow the rules, I've banned your account. If you don't want to be banned, you can always email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future.
kelukelugames 11y ago
As a Chinese immigrant I am always baffled when Americans visit third world countries.
- deleted 11y ago
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- statictype 11y ago
  You're confusing "China" with "all third world countries"
  - nicklaf 11y ago
    Also, China was a Second World country (at least, back when the distinction still made sense). Of course, at some point, "Third World" became synonymous with "poor", and was euphemised to "developing".
    - hirsin 11y ago
      When Mao created the notion of the Three Worlds, he included China in the Third World [1]. It was (ostensibly) unaligned, whereas Europe (and to an extent Japan) was aligned, making it Second World. He (via Deng) specifically called out the Third World as underdeveloped. [1] “Speech by Chairman of the Delegation of the People’s Republic of China, Teng Hsiao-Ping, at the Special Session of the U.N. General Assembly: April 10, 1974” (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1974).
      - nicklaf 11y ago
        I was unaware of Mao's Three World theory. I had assumed that kelukelugames meant the phrase in the European sense of the term, coined in 1952 by Alfred Sauvy (according to Wikipedia).
        hirsin 11y ago
        Quite correct - I took Kissinger at his word [1] when he said Mao coined it. Kissinger tends to gloss over smaller details at times though, he's an excellent student of historiography. [1] On China
e40 11y ago
This is a very good example of the law of unintended consequences.
malkia 11y ago
I've heard of a similar story, but in a different context. One of the asian airlines (I don't remember whether it was Taiwan, South Korean, etc.) had problems and lots of crashes. Turns out, people were not accustomed of questioning their bosses, and if this boss was your other co-pilot you would've never even try to correct them. I can't find the article, but it went something like "a western professor" goes to the troubled company and fixes the problem "overnight" by simply retraining the employees that they should be able to judge their superiours. I'm sorry for missing the critical part here - the actual article, but such cultural traits can definitely surprise people from other countries (like it did me with this one).
- chatmasta 11y ago
  You're thinking of the story from a Malcolm Gladwell book, either Blink or Outliers, I don't remember which. It analyzed the countries with the most airline accidents. South Korea followed by some South American countries was the worst, for the cultural customs of deference that you describe.
- brianpgordon 11y ago
  Something similar happened on Tenerife in the 70s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenerife_airport_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenerife_airport_disaster It led to widespread reform encouraging aircrew to speak up if something is wrong.
- znt 11y ago
  It's in the book Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell. More info: http://blogs.wsj.com/middleseat/2008/12/04/malcolm-gladwell-on-culture-cockpit-communication-and-plane-crashes/ http://blogs.wsj.com/middleseat/2008/12/04/malcolm-gladwell-...
  - malkia 11y ago
    Thank you! Yes, I believe this was the original article, but I've never bothered to read the book. Maybe I should! Edit: From the last comment found this article - which goes a bit against Malcolm Gladwell's findings - interesting read indeed - http://askakorean.blogspot.kr/2013/07/culturalism-gladwell-and-airplane.html http://askakorean.blogspot.kr/2013/07/culturalism-gladwell-a...
mirimir 11y ago
There's a similar dynamic in Mexico. Causing injury can mean responsibility for lifetime care. Another factor is Napoleonic law aka presumption of guilt. So one may end up in jail until trial. The third factor is ubiquitous graft. After an accident, the party with the most cash gets to tell the official story. So yes, advice is to flee with plates and registration (if any). But I didn't get that killing victims was commonplace.
- spacehome 11y ago
  > Causing injury can mean responsibility for lifetime care. As well it should.
  - nitrogen 11y ago
    Some burdens are simply too severe to levy on a single person for an accident. These should be borne by a combination of insurance, the community, and/or the state.
    - gburt 11y ago
      The language "accident" (and the associated story) implies that one cannot control whether they injure someone with their 2000lb death machines. That is not true.
      - nitrogen 11y ago
        It's pretty clear that the incentives are all wrong. People doing these things are making the judgment that it's less expensive and less risky to kill than to injure. This is terrible, and a necessary but not sufficient part of the solution is making sure the incentives are right via insurance and liability limits.
      - AnthonyMouse 11y ago
        > The language "accident" (and the associated story) implies that one cannot control whether they injure someone with their 2000lb death machines. That is not true. It's an accident because it's not on purpose. If you intentionally kill your ex with your car then people don't call it an accident. Moreover, there are less than 5000 pedestrian fatalities per year in the US, and the reason there are that many is that US drivers drive three trillion miles a year. That's less than one pedestrian fatality for every 600 million miles. At 12,000 miles a year it would take more than 50,000 years before the average driver would kill one pedestrian. And that isn't doing any accounting for the cases where the pedestrian was at fault. Most drivers never kill anyone. And that remains true even though almost all drivers are idiots at least some of the time. Because to kill someone you have to be an idiot and be in exactly the wrong place at exactly the wrong time. But you can't control random chance, which is why we have insurance.
speeder 11y ago
In Brazil the punishment for murder is lesser than many other crimes, leading to people murdering investigators (or in one particularly infamous case, a mayor murdered two environmental cops that were going to investigate his farm, got convicted, but still got re-elected). Also firing a gun and not hitting anything also has a harsher punishment than hitting someone, so unless you are a cop that need to draw attention or something, if you need to fire a gun, you need to make sure you will hit someone.
- chaostheory 11y ago
  The general culture of the Central and South America is actually pretty similar to China and other Asian countries.
  - caio1982 11y ago
    Multiple citations needed.
    - chaostheory 11y ago
      You don't need a research paper to see the similarities. Both are low trust societies with a strong focus on a clan mentality needed for protection from the aforementioned low trust society i.e. bribing officials high and low, using family connections to get access to jobs, real food and real medicine; and so on When I think about it, I feel that it's one of the reasons that Asian family ties tend to weaken when they migrate to the West. Societal trust is a lot higher here so there's less need to rely on your family. 关系 is important everywhere, but it's way more important in low trust societies.
  - copperx 11y ago
    Did you mean "general disregard of the law" by "culture"? Because the cultures are light years apart.
    - chaostheory 11y ago
      Are they? Which culture do you feel is more ahead in terms of trust?
Retric 11y ago
In many of these cases bribes are what get people off not stupidity. PS: Granted, in a functional democracy changing the perverse incentives is a much better option. But, unfortunately in China the only reasonable response to this IMO is to find and brutally kill the driver and then publish this after the fact. Accidents happen, but murder should never end up as the 'better' option.
- Nadya 11y ago
  So your 'better' option to "getting off the hook" is murder? On a related topic - if you're dying on the streets of China, your chances of receiving help are slim. Anyone who attempts to help you is responsible for your medical bills. They'll let you die on the streets. The problem here is laws regarding expenses.
  - Retric 11y ago
    When the state executes someone for a crime it's generally not considered murder. Vigilantism is considered a wide range of things in various cultures, but even in the US if a someone saw a driver drive back and forth over there kid and they pulled out a gun and shot the driver in rage then they would likely get off. Doing the same thing in cold blood would be considered murder in the US, but we have a mostly functional court system. Without that Vigilantism may preform similar functions as state sponsored executions. Sure, it's far from ideal, but so is cold blooded murder of a child. PS: Actual death would not be a requierment, but a level of harm that causes people to avoid murder is.
    - jqm 11y ago
      "we have a mostly functional court system" I think we actually have a manifestly dysfunctional court system. But I suppose comparatively it works at some level.
revelation 11y ago
Well, in the US it doesn't matter, there are no consequences either way. You can literally rampage up a sidewalk and send a bunch of kids to hospital, and have city council line up excuses for you. [0] If you do manage to kill someone, no worries, just tell police you were grasping for some milk carton. [1] If you go by police, there are literally plenty of cars of all makes and forms randomly losing control! [2] These are just some of the more outrageous failings. Don't kid yourself, the only reason people are not backing over victims in the US is that there is literally no need with a "legal system" happy to excuse drunkards and the plain irresponsible long past the border to criminal recklessness. 0: http://www.streetsblog.org/2013/09/12/driver-jumps-a-curb-and-hits-five-children-near-queens-school/ http://www.streetsblog.org/2013/09/12/driver-jumps-a-curb-an... 1: http://nypost.com/2013/03/12/deadly-wipeout-van-jumps-curb-at-queens-school-kills-student/ http://nypost.com/2013/03/12/deadly-wipeout-van-jumps-curb-a... 2: http://www.streetsblog.org/2015/07/17/nypd-no-charges-for-driver-who-killed-woman-on-brooklyn-sidewalk/ http://www.streetsblog.org/2015/07/17/nypd-no-charges-for-dr... (This comment merely serves to dispel this notion some readers may get that this is an injustice that surely only happens in these third-world countries)
- thrownaway2424 11y ago
  Traffic violence in the US is absurd. If you want to kill someone you might as well just do it in a car. Nobody will even bother investigating. The most recent atrocity was this week when a notorious reckless driver ran over a child and killed her. The driver is not charged with anything, but an outraged bystander who assaulted the driver at the scene was charged. http://www.streetsblog.org/2015/09/02/da-ken-thompson-charges-for-punching-driver-no-charges-for-killing-child http://www.streetsblog.org/2015/09/02/da-ken-thompson-charge...
  - FilterSweep 11y ago
    Well, if you have alcohol in your system you'll be hypothetically hung in court.
    - Snesker 11y ago
mgraczyk 11y ago
Did anybody watch the last video? It looks like the person with the young boy pushes the boy under the truck. http://www.fzjfw.com/xxzx/aritcle194.html http://www.fzjfw.com/xxzx/aritcle194.html I'm surprised that wasn't explained in the article.
netforay 11y ago
Even though it is something I wanted to know, unfortunately this is not a story that I want to read at hacker news.
- drchiu 11y ago
  Agreed. Can't believe this is the top link on HN. On a related note, there is crazy stuff like this in China everywhere.
- enraged_camel 11y ago
  If you don't want to read it then don't. But if it's being upvoted to the front page it usually means other people here find it interesting and want to discuss it.
- codyb 11y ago
  I thought it was very interesting to learn about the effects of certain societal aspects on human behavior in societies at large. Hackernews serves as a distribution vector for most content which expands the mind to new technologies, cultures, science, or entrepreneurial techniques. For you, there is still quite a fair amount of technical content posted daily :-).
sandworm101 11y ago
Forgetting the laws, what sort of people can so casually kill like this? There are basic human instincts not to hurt people. Armies have to train soldiers to ignore these feelings because without training most won't kill even under combat situations. So when I see someone kill so casually I have to believe that they have rehearsed the scenario in their head beforehand. That means a large number of chinese people drive around with a plan in their head covering how to kill should they injure someone. They are mentally prepared at all times to commit murder on demand. That's messed up. It does not speak well of the country or its citizens when they travel abroad.
- pvnick 11y ago
  People throughout history have killed, seemingly casually. It's human nature. I would contend that modern society has instilled these feelings of guilt associated with murder specifically against the natural tendency of man.
  - clarkmoody 11y ago
    The vast majority of people have never and will never murder. It's not human nature to do so.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
    - AdeptusAquinas 11y ago
      The book Guns, germs and steel retorts that fit the majority of human history (I.e the last hundred thousand years or so) most human encounters with other humans who were not family resulted in death for one party or another. Still the case in some isolated areas. Only the growth of societies really changed that default inclination, out of necessity.
      - copperx 11y ago
        That seems awfully murderous. Not even animals of the same race face that fate.
jmspring 11y ago
Not the same, but...an anecdote from when I went through driver's education. This was many moons ago and it was meant tongue in cheek, with a bit of truth -- if you hit a pedestrian to the point they are severely injured, you better hope they don't survive. Thinking seems to be -- A car versus a pedestrian (or cyclist) unless a glancing blow is going to do a lot of damage to the ped/cyclist. Personal liability could be huge in the case of injury, much more so (potentially) than wrongful death. We see this commonly in the Bay Area in motorist killing a cyclist, the criminal penalty (if any) is often not as severe as it should be. (The above said, even when the motorist hits and the ped/cyclist survives, getting justice can be long and involved -- classic case is the Los Gatos/Los Altos business man who severely impacted a cyclist who was permanently injured -- http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_20884491/saratoga-businessman-robert-schiro-sentenced-three-years-state http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_20884491/saratoga-businessman-... ) I don't advocate such, just a story and some bay area experiences I remember.
weirand 11y ago
In china where the population density is so high that there's no room left for humanity.
rectang 11y ago
I'm reminded that many land mines are designed to maim rather than kill, maximizing the cost to the enemy by forcing them to care for wounded casualties.
matt2000 11y ago
The fact that this story is the top of hacker news should indicate to us all that this site has lost what it had. How is this different than reddit? How do we want it to be different? This is simply a sensational, horrifying article that has been up voted because of its shock value. We can do better.
- deleted 11y ago
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- orthoganol 11y ago
  Shocking content does not mean it is shock value.
- elwell 11y ago
  I would say: https://news.ycombinator.com/classic https://news.ycombinator.com/classic but that doesn't seem to help much.
  - Sir_Cmpwn 11y ago
    What is that page?
    - dang 11y ago
      Stories ranked using votes from old accounts.
- MarkMc 11y ago
  I'm quite happy to see this story on Hacker News. Yes, it has shock value but also leads to some deep questions about human nature, cultural relativism, morality, criminal justice, etc. For example, it has made me wonder whether an every-man-for-himself culture necessarily leads to a poor outcome for all involved, a bit like the prisoner's dilemma on a large scale. Can China become a first-world country without changing this aspect of their culture?
- troisx 11y ago
  I was about to make a snarky reply about your complaint, but first I wanted to remind myself what HN was like when it first started and I had my original account. So I headed to the archives and realized I'd forgotten how great HN was in 07/08. So thanks for the nostalgic moment.
Xcelerate 11y ago
I could not finish this article. I have read about and seen a lot of disturbing things, but this bothers me far more than any horror movie or shock film ever could. The situation exposed in this article evidences something really fundamental about human nature: the banality of evil. That someone could run over a toddler and then reverse back and forth over them just so they only have to pay $50,000 instead of $400,000 — well, it's absolutely sickening. Time and again I'm reminded that most people are really only "good" because it benefits them personally in some way. But the ease with which so many people simply rationalize away all the horrors that mankind commits — I suppose that's part of the human genome. This really depresses me.
- the_economist 11y ago
  Humans are basically good: http://www.ted.com/talks/ben_dunlap_talks_about_a_passionate_life?language=en http://www.ted.com/talks/ben_dunlap_talks_about_a_passionate...
  - bennesvig 11y ago
    I'd say not good or bad but flawed.
- mistermann 11y ago
  > Time and again I'm reminded that most people are really only "good" because it benefits them personally in some way. I don't know if that's the general nature of people though - I think when people have enough, but not too much, they're generally good. But if you're below or above that middle bound, things start to go bad. If you're below, natural hunger and base instincts for survival drive your behavior. But if you're above that "safe" level, it seems like a lot of people go a little wonky - lots of people who get to a significantly higher level, it's almost like it sets off a switch in their brain and it turns into a game, where they can't resist seeing how much they can get, damn the consequences.
- modarts 11y ago
  I'm seriously ill after reading this
massysett 11y ago
The story emphasizes laws on monetary compensation for victims, which I think misses the point entirely. The real reason people are doing this is because they can commit murder and apparently they are not punished for it. If you deliberately run over a living person to kill him, that is murder.
droopybuns 11y ago
Why should I trust an article like this? Outrageous claims. No sources. pageviews.exe
- maaku 11y ago
  The second paragraph links to security camera footage.
ilaksh 11y ago
I'd like to hear the Chinese perspective. Also, what penalties do people pay in the US if they accidentally cripple someone?
- jrockway 11y ago
  A few dollars a month more on their insurance premiums.
pwthornton 11y ago
China is apparently a bigger hell hole than I could have ever imagined.
ausjke 11y ago
Everything is about money when the amount is huge, anything else, including killing, comes to the second. I don't believe anyone enjoys killing there, however when it's tied with huge chunks of money, many of them will choose to kill instead of leaving a disabled human being on wheelchair keeping asking for lifelong financial support. It's indeed similar to the gun-shoot case in USA, either you don't pull the trigger, or you make sure the target is absolutely dead, that explains some victims have lots of gunshots on their body. The law must be adapted to deal with this.
LiweiZ 11y ago
People's actions are the reflection of the real laws/rules in their group. And people tend to take advantage of it. Thinking about killing someone would make you lose way less, is it still a normal world? Why didn't those "killers" take equivalent responsibilities? That's the real why.
kzhahou 11y ago
The story in the intro doesnt match the well-publicized video of the accident, which is on YouTube. The driver does NOT switch into reverse, and the grandmother does not scream for the driver to stop. So unless there was another toddler run-over by a white vehicle in the same city, the driver just made shit up. WTH???
Snesker 11y ago
Alternate title: Why Americans intentionally kill home invaders. It's a much more economical choice than suffering through a civil suit and paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages and medical bills to a criminal who, for all the court cares, wanted to rape and kill you. In the end, it's capitalism working as intended, top to bottom.
tzs 11y ago
Three questions: 1. The article notes that the monetary cost to the driver for accidentally killing someone is much less than the cost for accidentally disabling someone. For drivers that do not have much wealth, and who are the sole source of income for their family, I can see how [1] they might decide that the harm to their family from having to pay that higher cost might outweigh the harm from killing a stranger. People tend to value their immediate family very much more than they value strangers. However, it seems a lot of these cases were people driving expensive luxury cars. For people with the incomes or wealth to afford those cars, is the cost difference enough to actually cause serious hardship for them or their family? 2. How does this work when the pedestrian is a foreigner, such as a tourist or a business traveler? Do drivers know that (1) these people will have their medical bills taken care of by insurance or the national healthcare systems of their home countries, so there is no need to kill them, and (2) it would really piss off their home country, which would cause severe diplomatic pressure on China to seriously punish the driver? 3. Drivers certainly cannot count on always being able to finish off any pedestrian they hit. Why hasn't an insurance market sprung up to deal with the risk of disabling pedestrians? [1] Note: "I can see how" is not meant to mean "I approve of". It is observational, not judgmental.
VarunAgw 11y ago
Please tell me this is not true. How someone can so ruthless? I just can't believe this
bohrshaw 11y ago
I'm a native living in China. After glancing over the article, I don't bother reading it in details. The title sounds ridiculous, but certainly marketable. I see people here are generally sensible but also emotional. I don't have country level statistics related to these extreme behaviors. But people around me are all very kind and I know many having very high standard of morality. We're constantly chasing for the positive and good.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
iradik 11y ago
They don't have car insurance in China?
argklm 11y ago
When the state only thinks about money, people will turn into objects. The population will start to see other humans less valuable than their dinner table and will do their best to exploit them. If you go to China you will see beautiful landscapes, the lineage of one of the most advanced cultures and you will see the pain and the loneliness of its inhabitants. The rest of the world didn't cure the infection in time and now has grown to necrosis at the point that sociopathy it's the norm rather than the exception.

237 points by fhinson 11y ago

Holy cow, that's some messed up shit. I've never heard of such a thing. And that they're getting slaps on the wrists if any punishment at all because cops are believing their insane stories. What a cultural mess.

dmm 11y ago
When a pedestrian or cyclist is killed by a car in the US, so long as the driver is not drunk and does not leave the scene, the driver will almost never face criminal penalties. What we call car accidents are considered an unavoidable part of life to be resolved by civil courts and insurance payouts. I'd say say the US has a cultural mess regarding cars too.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- maerF0x0 11y ago
  Its crazy to me that California requires so little coverage, on the order of 30k. If you wipe out the sole bread winner of a household, they can expect to make something like 1yr or less of replaced income. In other countries, say canada, insurance minimum can be 1M .
  - tsotha 11y ago
    The fact that you don't have a lot of insurance doesn't mean you're not liable for damages. If you hit someone with $30k insurance in CA and the court awards them $1M, you still owe $970,000.
    - maerF0x0 11y ago
      Would bankruptcy absolve you of that though? Or is it one of those long term things where they'll garnish your wages as much as they can? In Canada if you get in a bad accident w/o insurance the government fronts the money and then uses its power to garnish wages/make your life hell to collect as much as it can.
      - tsotha 11y ago
        Bankruptcy doesn't erase a court judgement, though it might make it easier if you stiff your other creditors. The state doesn't front the money, and the court will garnish your wages and any assets you may acquire until your dying day. And after, come to think of it.
- nkozyra 11y ago
  Even if this is true - and I'd suggest it could use some support - it's a bit different than realizing post-accident that the victim is still alive and then intentionally murdering them.
- argonaut 11y ago
  This is terrible trope that keeps coming up. When something bad happens in a country, just because you claim the US has the same problem does not at all ever make it acceptable. It's a total non sequitur. And that's without even mentioning the fact that 1) the people in the article actually fled the scene, 2) many of them got out of the car and ran over the person again, 3) in the US you will in fact face penalties if you are deemed to be negligent in some way (you were speeding, didn't have a license, etc.)
  - hga 11y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism And yes, in the US, if you are negligent, you will be facing criminal and civil penalties, in a legal system where guanxi is much less likely to aid you.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
- mc32 11y ago
  These are really not comparable situations at all. If you ever lived there you'd know you're comparing two very different attitudes. If you were in an unfortunate accident where you're involved with hitting a cyclist or pedestrian, there are certain rules and expectations, right of way, deference to smaller modes of transportation, etc. There the bigger the vehicle the bigger the deference by smaller vehicles by tradition and necessity, it's completely opposite. In addition, you would know that sidewalk and street are one and the same in most places. And the occurrence of backing up to purposely e sure terminal injury is not uncommon in the least. It's in the news, it's quite ordinary.
- adventured 11y ago
  You're comparing completely different scenarios, trying to paint the US in an artificially bad light. If you intentionally drive over a pedestrian multiple times to try to kill them, you're going to prison potentially for decades. One scenario is purely an accident, the other is intentionally trying to make sure you murder the pedestrian.
  - prapam2 11y ago
    What if driver has some issue with someone and intentionally drives over him (no alcohol or drugs on the driver), can they get away with it?
- ryanackley 11y ago
  Can you cite sources or any basis at all for this conclusion? An acquaintance of mine was speeding and killed someone. He went to jail for a couple of years. No alcohol or drugs were involved and he didn't leave the scene. He was going something like 80 in a 55mph zone.
  - gburt 11y ago
    I'm not the OP, but some data here: http://freakonomics.com/2014/05/01/the-perfect-crime-a-new-freakonomics-radio-podcast/ http://freakonomics.com/2014/05/01/the-perfect-crime-a-new-f...
  - y2c 11y ago
    http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/10/opinion/sunday/is-it-ok-to-kill-cyclists.html http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/10/opinion/sunday/is-it-ok-to... has a bunch of examples (though does not link to sources). Quote from this article: '“We do not know of a single case of a cyclist fatality in which the driver was prosecuted, except for D.U.I. or hit-and-run,” Leah Shahum, the executive director of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, told me.' Big ones off the top of my head: - Amelie de Moullac: police found driver at fault, DA refused to prosecute - Charles Vinson: driver ran a red light. Vinson also technically ran a red, but had the walk signal. Vinson was found at fault; driver not even 50% fault. These are pretty SF-specific examples, but I don't think it's an SF-specific phenomenon.
- mikerichards 11y ago
  Yes, we all understand that stupid little non-analogy that you US haters use. The template is as follows: Something bad happens in some other country. The America hater immediately responds with something that the US does that is usually nothing at all to do with the point of the story. Yes, we understand your retarded tactics. Try again.
  - x0 11y ago
    Yep. As a non-American, it gets a little boring when people keep bringing America up in threads that aren't about America.
mc32 11y ago
This is most definitely true. It's because a lifetime of compensation is most of the time more money than a single flat payment for causing death. I know of one foreigner who upon accidentally injuring a pedestrian, non too seriously, was advised by his expat friends to get on the first available flight out on the double. Staying would have involved a victim exaggerating injuries and extorting a foreigner for life. So he went to the bank got some money and beelined it to the airport. Not even going back to his flat to pick up things, except for a friend picking up his passport. Sad perverse incentives. Of course he can never go there again as he's officially a fugitive.
istvan__ 11y ago
Yet it is terrible. Almost as bad as driving without a license plate so you hit and kill somebody you can flee the scene and nobody would be able to identify you. But that does not happen, right? http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-laz-rear-license-plates-20141203-story.html http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-laz-rear-license-plate...
PeterWhittaker 11y ago
I do not understand the downvoting of this post. It is messed up. Completely messed up. Downvote if you disagree. But please do 'fess up to the fact that you downvoting because you think it is OK to transform an accident into homicide.
- bottled_poe 11y ago
  People a down-voting because the comment uses an appeal-to-emotion to vilify an entire culture.
  - paulhauggis 11y ago
    Found the asshole that down voted it.
    - dang 11y ago
      > Found the asshole We've asked you many times to abide by the HN guidelines when commenting here. Instead you've been breaking them worse. Since you won't follow the rules, I've banned your account. If you don't want to be banned, you can always email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future.

kelukelugames 11y ago

As a Chinese immigrant I am always baffled when Americans visit third world countries.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
statictype 11y ago
You're confusing "China" with "all third world countries"
- nicklaf 11y ago
  Also, China was a Second World country (at least, back when the distinction still made sense). Of course, at some point, "Third World" became synonymous with "poor", and was euphemised to "developing".
  - hirsin 11y ago
    When Mao created the notion of the Three Worlds, he included China in the Third World [1]. It was (ostensibly) unaligned, whereas Europe (and to an extent Japan) was aligned, making it Second World. He (via Deng) specifically called out the Third World as underdeveloped. [1] “Speech by Chairman of the Delegation of the People’s Republic of China, Teng Hsiao-Ping, at the Special Session of the U.N. General Assembly: April 10, 1974” (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1974).
    - nicklaf 11y ago
      I was unaware of Mao's Three World theory. I had assumed that kelukelugames meant the phrase in the European sense of the term, coined in 1952 by Alfred Sauvy (according to Wikipedia).
      - hirsin 11y ago
        Quite correct - I took Kissinger at his word [1] when he said Mao coined it. Kissinger tends to gloss over smaller details at times though, he's an excellent student of historiography. [1] On China

e40 11y ago

This is a very good example of the law of unintended consequences.

malkia 11y ago

I've heard of a similar story, but in a different context. One of the asian airlines (I don't remember whether it was Taiwan, South Korean, etc.) had problems and lots of crashes. Turns out, people were not accustomed of questioning their bosses, and if this boss was your other co-pilot you would've never even try to correct them. I can't find the article, but it went something like "a western professor" goes to the troubled company and fixes the problem "overnight" by simply retraining the employees that they should be able to judge their superiours. I'm sorry for missing the critical part here - the actual article, but such cultural traits can definitely surprise people from other countries (like it did me with this one).

chatmasta 11y ago
You're thinking of the story from a Malcolm Gladwell book, either Blink or Outliers, I don't remember which. It analyzed the countries with the most airline accidents. South Korea followed by some South American countries was the worst, for the cultural customs of deference that you describe.
brianpgordon 11y ago
Something similar happened on Tenerife in the 70s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenerife_airport_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenerife_airport_disaster It led to widespread reform encouraging aircrew to speak up if something is wrong.
znt 11y ago
It's in the book Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell. More info: http://blogs.wsj.com/middleseat/2008/12/04/malcolm-gladwell-on-culture-cockpit-communication-and-plane-crashes/ http://blogs.wsj.com/middleseat/2008/12/04/malcolm-gladwell-...
- malkia 11y ago
  Thank you! Yes, I believe this was the original article, but I've never bothered to read the book. Maybe I should! Edit: From the last comment found this article - which goes a bit against Malcolm Gladwell's findings - interesting read indeed - http://askakorean.blogspot.kr/2013/07/culturalism-gladwell-and-airplane.html http://askakorean.blogspot.kr/2013/07/culturalism-gladwell-a...

mirimir 11y ago

There's a similar dynamic in Mexico. Causing injury can mean responsibility for lifetime care. Another factor is Napoleonic law aka presumption of guilt. So one may end up in jail until trial. The third factor is ubiquitous graft. After an accident, the party with the most cash gets to tell the official story. So yes, advice is to flee with plates and registration (if any). But I didn't get that killing victims was commonplace.

spacehome 11y ago
> Causing injury can mean responsibility for lifetime care. As well it should.
- nitrogen 11y ago
  Some burdens are simply too severe to levy on a single person for an accident. These should be borne by a combination of insurance, the community, and/or the state.
  - gburt 11y ago
    The language "accident" (and the associated story) implies that one cannot control whether they injure someone with their 2000lb death machines. That is not true.
    - nitrogen 11y ago
      It's pretty clear that the incentives are all wrong. People doing these things are making the judgment that it's less expensive and less risky to kill than to injure. This is terrible, and a necessary but not sufficient part of the solution is making sure the incentives are right via insurance and liability limits.
    - AnthonyMouse 11y ago
      > The language "accident" (and the associated story) implies that one cannot control whether they injure someone with their 2000lb death machines. That is not true. It's an accident because it's not on purpose. If you intentionally kill your ex with your car then people don't call it an accident. Moreover, there are less than 5000 pedestrian fatalities per year in the US, and the reason there are that many is that US drivers drive three trillion miles a year. That's less than one pedestrian fatality for every 600 million miles. At 12,000 miles a year it would take more than 50,000 years before the average driver would kill one pedestrian. And that isn't doing any accounting for the cases where the pedestrian was at fault. Most drivers never kill anyone. And that remains true even though almost all drivers are idiots at least some of the time. Because to kill someone you have to be an idiot and be in exactly the wrong place at exactly the wrong time. But you can't control random chance, which is why we have insurance.

speeder 11y ago

In Brazil the punishment for murder is lesser than many other crimes, leading to people murdering investigators (or in one particularly infamous case, a mayor murdered two environmental cops that were going to investigate his farm, got convicted, but still got re-elected). Also firing a gun and not hitting anything also has a harsher punishment than hitting someone, so unless you are a cop that need to draw attention or something, if you need to fire a gun, you need to make sure you will hit someone.

chaostheory 11y ago
The general culture of the Central and South America is actually pretty similar to China and other Asian countries.
- caio1982 11y ago
  Multiple citations needed.
  - chaostheory 11y ago
    You don't need a research paper to see the similarities. Both are low trust societies with a strong focus on a clan mentality needed for protection from the aforementioned low trust society i.e. bribing officials high and low, using family connections to get access to jobs, real food and real medicine; and so on When I think about it, I feel that it's one of the reasons that Asian family ties tend to weaken when they migrate to the West. Societal trust is a lot higher here so there's less need to rely on your family. 关系 is important everywhere, but it's way more important in low trust societies.
- copperx 11y ago
  Did you mean "general disregard of the law" by "culture"? Because the cultures are light years apart.
  - chaostheory 11y ago
    Are they? Which culture do you feel is more ahead in terms of trust?

Retric 11y ago

In many of these cases bribes are what get people off not stupidity. PS: Granted, in a functional democracy changing the perverse incentives is a much better option. But, unfortunately in China the only reasonable response to this IMO is to find and brutally kill the driver and then publish this after the fact. Accidents happen, but murder should never end up as the 'better' option.

Nadya 11y ago
So your 'better' option to "getting off the hook" is murder? On a related topic - if you're dying on the streets of China, your chances of receiving help are slim. Anyone who attempts to help you is responsible for your medical bills. They'll let you die on the streets. The problem here is laws regarding expenses.
- Retric 11y ago
  When the state executes someone for a crime it's generally not considered murder. Vigilantism is considered a wide range of things in various cultures, but even in the US if a someone saw a driver drive back and forth over there kid and they pulled out a gun and shot the driver in rage then they would likely get off. Doing the same thing in cold blood would be considered murder in the US, but we have a mostly functional court system. Without that Vigilantism may preform similar functions as state sponsored executions. Sure, it's far from ideal, but so is cold blooded murder of a child. PS: Actual death would not be a requierment, but a level of harm that causes people to avoid murder is.
  - jqm 11y ago
    "we have a mostly functional court system" I think we actually have a manifestly dysfunctional court system. But I suppose comparatively it works at some level.

revelation 11y ago

Well, in the US it doesn't matter, there are no consequences either way. You can literally rampage up a sidewalk and send a bunch of kids to hospital, and have city council line up excuses for you. [0] If you do manage to kill someone, no worries, just tell police you were grasping for some milk carton. [1] If you go by police, there are literally plenty of cars of all makes and forms randomly losing control! [2] These are just some of the more outrageous failings. Don't kid yourself, the only reason people are not backing over victims in the US is that there is literally no need with a "legal system" happy to excuse drunkards and the plain irresponsible long past the border to criminal recklessness. 0: http://www.streetsblog.org/2013/09/12/driver-jumps-a-curb-and-hits-five-children-near-queens-school/ http://www.streetsblog.org/2013/09/12/driver-jumps-a-curb-an... 1: http://nypost.com/2013/03/12/deadly-wipeout-van-jumps-curb-at-queens-school-kills-student/ http://nypost.com/2013/03/12/deadly-wipeout-van-jumps-curb-a... 2: http://www.streetsblog.org/2015/07/17/nypd-no-charges-for-driver-who-killed-woman-on-brooklyn-sidewalk/ http://www.streetsblog.org/2015/07/17/nypd-no-charges-for-dr... (This comment merely serves to dispel this notion some readers may get that this is an injustice that surely only happens in these third-world countries)

thrownaway2424 11y ago
Traffic violence in the US is absurd. If you want to kill someone you might as well just do it in a car. Nobody will even bother investigating. The most recent atrocity was this week when a notorious reckless driver ran over a child and killed her. The driver is not charged with anything, but an outraged bystander who assaulted the driver at the scene was charged. http://www.streetsblog.org/2015/09/02/da-ken-thompson-charges-for-punching-driver-no-charges-for-killing-child http://www.streetsblog.org/2015/09/02/da-ken-thompson-charge...
- FilterSweep 11y ago
  Well, if you have alcohol in your system you'll be hypothetically hung in court.
  - Snesker 11y ago

mgraczyk 11y ago

Did anybody watch the last video? It looks like the person with the young boy pushes the boy under the truck. http://www.fzjfw.com/xxzx/aritcle194.html http://www.fzjfw.com/xxzx/aritcle194.html I'm surprised that wasn't explained in the article.

netforay 11y ago

Even though it is something I wanted to know, unfortunately this is not a story that I want to read at hacker news.

drchiu 11y ago
Agreed. Can't believe this is the top link on HN. On a related note, there is crazy stuff like this in China everywhere.
enraged_camel 11y ago
If you don't want to read it then don't. But if it's being upvoted to the front page it usually means other people here find it interesting and want to discuss it.
codyb 11y ago
I thought it was very interesting to learn about the effects of certain societal aspects on human behavior in societies at large. Hackernews serves as a distribution vector for most content which expands the mind to new technologies, cultures, science, or entrepreneurial techniques. For you, there is still quite a fair amount of technical content posted daily :-).

sandworm101 11y ago

Forgetting the laws, what sort of people can so casually kill like this? There are basic human instincts not to hurt people. Armies have to train soldiers to ignore these feelings because without training most won't kill even under combat situations. So when I see someone kill so casually I have to believe that they have rehearsed the scenario in their head beforehand. That means a large number of chinese people drive around with a plan in their head covering how to kill should they injure someone. They are mentally prepared at all times to commit murder on demand. That's messed up. It does not speak well of the country or its citizens when they travel abroad.

pvnick 11y ago
People throughout history have killed, seemingly casually. It's human nature. I would contend that modern society has instilled these feelings of guilt associated with murder specifically against the natural tendency of man.
- clarkmoody 11y ago
  The vast majority of people have never and will never murder. It's not human nature to do so.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - AdeptusAquinas 11y ago
    The book Guns, germs and steel retorts that fit the majority of human history (I.e the last hundred thousand years or so) most human encounters with other humans who were not family resulted in death for one party or another. Still the case in some isolated areas. Only the growth of societies really changed that default inclination, out of necessity.
    - copperx 11y ago
      That seems awfully murderous. Not even animals of the same race face that fate.

jmspring 11y ago

Not the same, but...an anecdote from when I went through driver's education. This was many moons ago and it was meant tongue in cheek, with a bit of truth -- if you hit a pedestrian to the point they are severely injured, you better hope they don't survive. Thinking seems to be -- A car versus a pedestrian (or cyclist) unless a glancing blow is going to do a lot of damage to the ped/cyclist. Personal liability could be huge in the case of injury, much more so (potentially) than wrongful death. We see this commonly in the Bay Area in motorist killing a cyclist, the criminal penalty (if any) is often not as severe as it should be. (The above said, even when the motorist hits and the ped/cyclist survives, getting justice can be long and involved -- classic case is the Los Gatos/Los Altos business man who severely impacted a cyclist who was permanently injured -- http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_20884491/saratoga-businessman-robert-schiro-sentenced-three-years-state http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_20884491/saratoga-businessman-... ) I don't advocate such, just a story and some bay area experiences I remember.

weirand 11y ago

In china where the population density is so high that there's no room left for humanity.

rectang 11y ago

I'm reminded that many land mines are designed to maim rather than kill, maximizing the cost to the enemy by forcing them to care for wounded casualties.

matt2000 11y ago

The fact that this story is the top of hacker news should indicate to us all that this site has lost what it had. How is this different than reddit? How do we want it to be different? This is simply a sensational, horrifying article that has been up voted because of its shock value. We can do better.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
orthoganol 11y ago
Shocking content does not mean it is shock value.
elwell 11y ago
I would say: https://news.ycombinator.com/classic https://news.ycombinator.com/classic but that doesn't seem to help much.
- Sir_Cmpwn 11y ago
  What is that page?
  - dang 11y ago
    Stories ranked using votes from old accounts.
MarkMc 11y ago
I'm quite happy to see this story on Hacker News. Yes, it has shock value but also leads to some deep questions about human nature, cultural relativism, morality, criminal justice, etc. For example, it has made me wonder whether an every-man-for-himself culture necessarily leads to a poor outcome for all involved, a bit like the prisoner's dilemma on a large scale. Can China become a first-world country without changing this aspect of their culture?
troisx 11y ago
I was about to make a snarky reply about your complaint, but first I wanted to remind myself what HN was like when it first started and I had my original account. So I headed to the archives and realized I'd forgotten how great HN was in 07/08. So thanks for the nostalgic moment.

Xcelerate 11y ago

I could not finish this article. I have read about and seen a lot of disturbing things, but this bothers me far more than any horror movie or shock film ever could. The situation exposed in this article evidences something really fundamental about human nature: the banality of evil. That someone could run over a toddler and then reverse back and forth over them just so they only have to pay $50,000 instead of $400,000 — well, it's absolutely sickening. Time and again I'm reminded that most people are really only "good" because it benefits them personally in some way. But the ease with which so many people simply rationalize away all the horrors that mankind commits — I suppose that's part of the human genome. This really depresses me.

the_economist 11y ago
Humans are basically good: http://www.ted.com/talks/ben_dunlap_talks_about_a_passionate_life?language=en http://www.ted.com/talks/ben_dunlap_talks_about_a_passionate...
- bennesvig 11y ago
  I'd say not good or bad but flawed.
mistermann 11y ago
> Time and again I'm reminded that most people are really only "good" because it benefits them personally in some way. I don't know if that's the general nature of people though - I think when people have enough, but not too much, they're generally good. But if you're below or above that middle bound, things start to go bad. If you're below, natural hunger and base instincts for survival drive your behavior. But if you're above that "safe" level, it seems like a lot of people go a little wonky - lots of people who get to a significantly higher level, it's almost like it sets off a switch in their brain and it turns into a game, where they can't resist seeing how much they can get, damn the consequences.
modarts 11y ago
I'm seriously ill after reading this

massysett 11y ago

The story emphasizes laws on monetary compensation for victims, which I think misses the point entirely. The real reason people are doing this is because they can commit murder and apparently they are not punished for it. If you deliberately run over a living person to kill him, that is murder.

droopybuns 11y ago

Why should I trust an article like this? Outrageous claims. No sources. pageviews.exe

maaku 11y ago
The second paragraph links to security camera footage.

ilaksh 11y ago

I'd like to hear the Chinese perspective. Also, what penalties do people pay in the US if they accidentally cripple someone?

jrockway 11y ago
A few dollars a month more on their insurance premiums.

pwthornton 11y ago

China is apparently a bigger hell hole than I could have ever imagined.

ausjke 11y ago

Everything is about money when the amount is huge, anything else, including killing, comes to the second. I don't believe anyone enjoys killing there, however when it's tied with huge chunks of money, many of them will choose to kill instead of leaving a disabled human being on wheelchair keeping asking for lifelong financial support. It's indeed similar to the gun-shoot case in USA, either you don't pull the trigger, or you make sure the target is absolutely dead, that explains some victims have lots of gunshots on their body. The law must be adapted to deal with this.

LiweiZ 11y ago

People's actions are the reflection of the real laws/rules in their group. And people tend to take advantage of it. Thinking about killing someone would make you lose way less, is it still a normal world? Why didn't those "killers" take equivalent responsibilities? That's the real why.

kzhahou 11y ago

The story in the intro doesnt match the well-publicized video of the accident, which is on YouTube. The driver does NOT switch into reverse, and the grandmother does not scream for the driver to stop. So unless there was another toddler run-over by a white vehicle in the same city, the driver just made shit up. WTH???

Snesker 11y ago

Alternate title: Why Americans intentionally kill home invaders. It's a much more economical choice than suffering through a civil suit and paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages and medical bills to a criminal who, for all the court cares, wanted to rape and kill you. In the end, it's capitalism working as intended, top to bottom.

tzs 11y ago

Three questions: 1. The article notes that the monetary cost to the driver for accidentally killing someone is much less than the cost for accidentally disabling someone. For drivers that do not have much wealth, and who are the sole source of income for their family, I can see how [1] they might decide that the harm to their family from having to pay that higher cost might outweigh the harm from killing a stranger. People tend to value their immediate family very much more than they value strangers. However, it seems a lot of these cases were people driving expensive luxury cars. For people with the incomes or wealth to afford those cars, is the cost difference enough to actually cause serious hardship for them or their family? 2. How does this work when the pedestrian is a foreigner, such as a tourist or a business traveler? Do drivers know that (1) these people will have their medical bills taken care of by insurance or the national healthcare systems of their home countries, so there is no need to kill them, and (2) it would really piss off their home country, which would cause severe diplomatic pressure on China to seriously punish the driver? 3. Drivers certainly cannot count on always being able to finish off any pedestrian they hit. Why hasn't an insurance market sprung up to deal with the risk of disabling pedestrians? [1] Note: "I can see how" is not meant to mean "I approve of". It is observational, not judgmental.

VarunAgw 11y ago

Please tell me this is not true. How someone can so ruthless? I just can't believe this

bohrshaw 11y ago

I'm a native living in China. After glancing over the article, I don't bother reading it in details. The title sounds ridiculous, but certainly marketable. I see people here are generally sensible but also emotional. I don't have country level statistics related to these extreme behaviors. But people around me are all very kind and I know many having very high standard of morality. We're constantly chasing for the positive and good.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

iradik 11y ago

They don't have car insurance in China?

argklm 11y ago

When the state only thinks about money, people will turn into objects. The population will start to see other humans less valuable than their dinner table and will do their best to exploit them. If you go to China you will see beautiful landscapes, the lineage of one of the most advanced cultures and you will see the pain and the loneliness of its inhabitants. The rest of the world didn't cure the infection in time and now has grown to necrosis at the point that sociopathy it's the norm rather than the exception.