• Hux@lemmy.ml
      ·
      6 months ago

      Only source seems to be this Slate article:

      https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2015/09/why-drivers-in-china-intentionally-kill-the-pedestrians-they-hit-chinas-laws-have-encouraged-the-hit-to-kill-phenomenon.html

      In respect to that specific Slate article, Snopes had some issues with it and labeled the story as “unproven”:

      https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/chinese-drivers-kill-pedestrians/

      The Snopes article does a nice job of pointing out the Slate article’s issues.

      • hungrybread [comrade/them]
        ·
        6 months ago

        You're right about the Snopes article. It does do a decent job of pointing out that a lot of this reporting is rumor based.

        This first anecdote (also highlighted by Snopes) is amusing

        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.

        So is it Taiwan or the mainland with these wild laws?

        Another false claim about China, it seems.