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Why drivers in China intentionally kill the pedestrians they hit

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Re: Why drivers in China intentionally kill the pedestrians they hit

#41

Post by facetube »

malkia wrote: post #14

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…

CRM – crew/cockpit resource management. This was (and is) a big deal in aviation across the board.

Re: Why drivers in China intentionally kill the pedestrians they hit

#42

Post by thrownaway2424 »

revelation wrote: post #33

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] The…

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-charge...

Re: Why drivers in China intentionally kill the pedestrians they hit

#43

Post by bottled_poe »

PeterWhittaker wrote: post #17
mikerichards wrote: post #2

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.

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.

People a down-voting because the comment uses an appeal-to-emotion to vilify an entire culture.

Re: Why drivers in China intentionally kill the pedestrians they hit

#44

Post by chaostheory »

speeder wrote: post #19

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…

The general culture of the Central and South America is actually pretty similar to China and other Asian countries.

Re: Why drivers in China intentionally kill the pedestrians they hit

#45

Post by nitrogen »

spacehome wrote: post #38
mirimir wrote: post #18

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 c…

> Causing injury can mean responsibility for lifetime care. As well it should.

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.

Re: Why drivers in China intentionally kill the pedestrians they hit

#46

Post by drchiu »

netforay wrote: post #39

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

Agreed. Can't believe this is the top link on HN.

On a related note, there is crazy stuff like this in China everywhere.

Re: Why drivers in China intentionally kill the pedestrians they hit

#47

Post by adventured »

revelation wrote: post #33

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] The…

Because you can find a few exceptions among tens of thousands of examples, doesn't mean it's a commonality. That's the critical distinction, and it makes your post obviously disingenuous. If anything the US has too harsh of a punishment system overall. The US is infamous for the exaggerated punishment of crime, not the lack of punishment.

Re: Why drivers in China intentionally kill the pedestrians they hit

#48

Post by danny8000 »

spacehome wrote: post #38
mirimir wrote: post #18

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 c…

> Causing injury can mean responsibility for lifetime care. As well it should.

No, there is insurance for that. Motor vehicles are inherently dangerous machines, and we all take the risk of injuring someone every time we drive. Insurance distributes the risk of driving across all drivers. You should only be punished for injuring someone with a car if you were negligent.

Re: Why drivers in China intentionally kill the pedestrians they hit

#49

Post by sandworm101 »

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.

Re: Why drivers in China intentionally kill the pedestrians they hit

#50

Post by jqm »

Retric wrote: post #40
Nadya wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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 functio…

"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.

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