Drivers in China are known for intentionally killing the people that they hit accidentally. Pedestrians are hit by the driver unintentionally but then the driver panics and runs over the person again and again to make sure they are dead. The reason for this phenomenon is an incentive system that makes the consequences far less punitive if the pedestrian is killed rather than just wounded. A driver would have to pay for that person’s injury for the rest of the victim’s life if the victim survives. If they don’t survive the driver only has to pay a one time lump sum to the family. Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian (The Point) hosts of The Young Turks discuss.

Would you be compelled to kill a pedestrian under this system or is the idea unthinkable to you? Let us know in the comments below.

Read more here: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_an…

“In April a BMW racing through a fruit market in Foshan in China’s Guangdong province knocked down a 2-year-old girl and rolled over her head. As the girl’s grandmother shouted, “Stop! You’ve hit a child!” the BMW’s driver paused, then switched into reverse and backed up over the girl. The woman at the wheel drove forward once more, crushing the girl for a third time. When she finally got out from the BMW, the unlicensed driver immediately offered the horrified family a deal: “Don’t say that I was driving the car,” she said. “Say it was my husband. We can give you money.”

It seems like a crazy urban legend: In China, drivers who have injured pedestrians will sometimes then try to kill them. And yet not only is it true, it’s fairly common; security cameras have regularly captured drivers driving back and forth on top of victims to make sure that they are dead. The Chinese language even has an adage for the phenomenon: “It is better to hit to kill than to hit and injure.”