Ugly that this happens all too often, but it's obviously not standard practice anywhere, including in China, so don't overdo it. There are indeed some lousy people at the wheel.

@Alien

Very nicely put.

Don't let the rumours put you off helping old people, or running people over just the once.
Don't let the minority spoil things for the majority.

chinese are practical and effecient. if person you just run over is dead, you pay one funeral expenses and one lot of payment to the family only once. the payment is scale to the victims earning potential, so farmers and factory worker on foot are worthless creatures. however, medical expenses is long term and is not scale the same way thus unknown. that is why the general practice of the good chinese flash car drivers will do to limit their liability. that is the new tradition. so dont argue. that is the way we do things here. wait till i run over you with my tank, i dont even have to back up over you twice to be sure to be sure. actually, many people believe runing over people with tanks has made the economy prosperous. so...... hahhahahhaah

I think the courts have a lot to do with it. It's relatively cheap to kill someone here with a vehicle, especially if it's a BMW or Porche. Maybe less than 350k rmb fine and usually no jail time as most cases don't have cc footage. That's much less than you paid for the car, quite a bargain.

Suggest you:
(1) use private cars and taxis as little as possible;
(2) do not hit and/or kill people when driving.
(3) If you hit and/or kill people with a car, or witness others do this, then
(a) alone or with others, offer immediate help to the victim;
(b) alone or with others, catch & restrain the driver of the car; and then
(c) call the cops or make sure someone else does.
Thanks for the link.
None of the killing mentioned is acceptable. None of it is likely to involve you, or any other random individual. Implying that such incidents characterize something about all Chinese is unwarrented.

All the problems on the road have been solved because alien just published the new rules. Now why didn't someone think of this earlier. Thanks Alien.

Suggest you -

1 - stay at home and never go out
2 - never have an accident - accidents are forbidden.
3 - if you hit or kill - I told you never to go out and never have an accident.
3a - catch and restrain the driver - call all your friends and beat him to a pulp
3b - make sure someone calls the cops if they refuse, beat them to a pulp

Campo, your:
1 is unnecessary;
2 - forbidding accidents is impossible, that's the nature of accidents
3a - yours is less important than mine, and is unnecessary once you've got him/her
3b - better would be to call them yourself.

Please locate a dictionary and look up the word - sarcasm.

@Campo: yes, but my worry is that some others might not get it all either - violent foreigners are not unknown in China.

in china, most fatal traffic accidents where the victims usually are the poors, are settled extrajudicial on the local police command level. so well connected people together with the police can manipulate the poorly informed. rmb 350k payout makes the news for sure, victims family get much less does not. that is the sad fact.