"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...."
More at the link, including gruesome descriptions of drivers who, having hit a person by accident, proceed to drive over him repeatedly to get a dead victim.
September 4, 2015
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33 comments:
Do they not have murder statutes?
This was always the rule for Chicago bus drivers. If they hit anyone, they backed over them to be sure the paperwork was minimal.
So in other words, the same reason the Affordable Care Act includes an Independent Payment Advisory Board.
And instead of getting rid of this perverse incentive, they'll just try and make matters worse by being even more controlling.
I had an argument with an anti gun zealot and made the point that if we are worried about people killing other people, we might as well consider banning cars.
He made the point that people in cars do so ACCIDENTALLY. So, its not the same thing. I'm going to have to link him this article.
Feh. Maybe I should get around to watching "Death Race 2000."
Years ago, I was driving in a semi-rural area of New Jersey (yes, they do have farms there), and on this small road, there was a scruffy-looking woman wandering into the road. I couldn't shake the feeling that she was taunting the drivers, daring any one of us to hit her. I found myself thinking that somebody could have deliberately plowed into her and then sworn up and down to the police that it was an accident. Scary.
In my driver Ed class in Newton, Mass., in 1966, the teacher said if we ever hit anyone, we should back up over them and make sure they were dead - it's cheaper that way. We were not sure if he was joking or not, after all, this was Massachusetts.
WTF do you expect from such fanatical capitalist pigs!
This is why auto insurance is mandatory with no opt out for rich people who want to self-insure.
England used to have that thing with railway accidents circa 1850.
Everything that went wrong with industrialization in the west, they repeat, only worse?
Cars are a less reliable way to kill people, than guns; also there are fewer victims and it is much harder to target someone.
Bombs kill the most but are the most difficlt to use.
In Israel some terrorists have resorted to cars (without explosives)
He's dead, now what?
When you strike a king, you must kill him.
China loses the most human lives to their one-child policy. The counterpart to liberal society's selective-child policy. The most effective means to terminate a human life is the scalpel or poison. The most effective circumstance to terminate a human life is when it's captive and defenseless in a woman's womb.
"If you hit somebody, back up and make sure; it's a one-time payout" has been an inside joke as long as I've been driving busses.
All right - I'm gonna be that guy, and say this is evil.
And you always get more of what you incentivize.
Perverse result
"East of Suez" they tend to have a different outlook on life, death, and suffering.
It would be good if "the smartest guy in the room" would realize that.
Wait, incentives matter? Who the hell could have guessed?
Cars don't kill people, people kill people.
China also punish Good Samaritans. If you saw a body on the road, speed ahead, else you will be responsible whether you were the one who ran over him was immaterial. In rural areas, relatives would put a corpse on the one and only road. So, if you stopped, you paid. If you didn't stop, you paid: the corpse's relatives were waiting and watching and road blocking.
Hello, progressive democrat party members? Here's something you should see about incentivizing bad behavior.
Left Bank of the Charles said...
This is why auto insurance is mandatory with no opt out for rich people who want to self-insure.
9/4/15, 5:06 PM
Because otherwise rich people would be intentionally murdering people with their cars? Sure Lefty, that must make sense to the prejudiced progressive class-warfare mindset...
"He made the point that people in cars do so ACCIDENTALLY."
Doesn't that hurt his argument? More people get killed by cars... and the drivers aren't even trying to kill! That sounds like something much more dangerous than guns.
Can we conclude that killing someone with your car in China is not a criminal manner? If so, doesn't that put the "America has more people in prison than anyone!" into perspective?
This article makes no sense. The commies value money over human life? No way! That's the realm of capitalist behavior. /sarc
Should be tagged: murder
Risk of imprisonment/death penalty should be the counter-incentive. Guess it doesn't work that way in China.
They are following good legal advice.
The basic fact situation is universal in application whether there is an Insuance policy or not.
Dead men are priced at the full value of a human life and that relates to earning capacity that the heirs never receive being replaced at present value...or whatever amount the jury says it is.
But the care of a paraplegic for his life expectancy is in another universe of damages. A case like that against a solvent corporation is a gold mine. But it has to be earned because those cases are total war with zero ethical standard expected or given by cut throat Defense counsel.
Plus if there's a corpse you might at least make some money from selling the organs, right? For research? I mean, ahem, donating the organs, but getting paid for the shipping and handling, obviously.
jr565 said...
I had an argument with an anti gun zealot and made the point that if we are worried about people killing other people, we might as well consider banning cars.
He made the point that people in cars do so ACCIDENTALLY. So, its not the same thing. I'm going to have to link him this article.
9/4/15, 4:09 PM"
Should have told the nut its a distinction without a difference since dead is still dead and by the way how is being aborted any less than being shot dead.
Can you imagine 1.3 billion people in one country called China?
I can't.
I get stuck at a few thousand; and, fear data more numerous and accurate will indeed change my perspective but not in accordance with anything real except for the damn number's reality of its clean superiority.
You would have to include great wealth and great joy, along with other.
Scratch China off the list of possible tourist destinations.
Incentives matter.
We (the USA) have done the same thing. With the effective abolition of the death penalty, enhancements for armed crimes, and piling on of charges, we punish a lot of acts at least as much as homicide. Thus, there is an incentive to get rid of witnesses (it's no worse if you get caught, and with no witnesses, you might get away with it).
Health care works this way under Obama Care. When the patient dies the system saves money in the long term. The incentive system is alive and well.
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