The problem in the article is the fact that Taiwanese and Chinese drivers have been taking advantage of the fact that it is economically more beneficial for them to run over and kill a pedestrian with their vehicle rather than only injuring them. This has lead to cases involving drivers accidentally running over a pedestrian, perhaps only injuring them slightly, but then proceeding to run over the person several times to insure that they are dead, in order to reduce the money that they will have to pay to compensate the person they ran over. Individuals are to blame in the sense that the individuals who have chosen to murder these people have done so and have not only reduced the cost of paying for the victim’s medical care bill, but have also, in many cases, not been convicted of murder, and instead are fined or have to serve a short term for “negligence,” essentially proving that people can continue this trend and not be held responsible for their actions. I think that the large group of people who share this mindset should have the blame because there would not be so many cases of this happening unless a lot of people believe that killing pedestrians that they hit is worth the reduced monetary cost. These individuals that choose to kill these pedestrians are cruel because they value their money more than the lives of strangers by enough that they would rather murder them than pay them the money that they owe them to recover. There is a systematic problem in China, as the consequences for “double hit cases” are not nearly as substantial as they need to be, but that does not mean that individuals are not being cruel by taking advantage. China should change the incentive for people to do this by increasing the punishment for deliberately running over a person multiple times by treating it the same way as 1st degree murder and increasing the conviction rate of guilty offenders. Also, the burial fee should be increased significantly in order to make sure drivers stop intentionally killing pedestrians.
There are many flawed incentive systems in the United States that are similar to the flawed system in China. One such flawed system is speed limits put in place on highway roads and expressways. Because of the scarcity of police officers on highway shoulders enforcing the speed limit as well as the lack of speed cameras on highways, a large amount of American drivers tend to drive up to 20 miles per hour faster than the speed limit most of the time they are on the highway. This has become such a popular trend in the United States that people are often honked at and passed by other drivers if they are driving the speed limit in any lane other than the slow lane. While this is not as serious as the China phenomenon discussed in the article, this does contribute to a lot of accidents on the highway, as many of the drivers who drive above the speed limit significantly tend to be less careful and more reckless. Solutions to this problem may include increasing the number of officers on the shoulders, installing cameras on highway roads, increasing the fine for speeding tickets, and making campaign commercials to make the American public feel more guilty about speeding and understand the dangers behind it.
phuetteman 