China has more than its fair share of weird phenomena, but the ‘intentional car accident’ trick (known as 'peng ci' in Mandarin) ranks among the best of them.
Just a few months after an ingenious man stripped naked and threw himself under a Mercedes in Zhejiang, 16 criminal “gangs” were broken up by police in Guangzhou after it was determined they were deliberately causing traffic accidents to claim compensation.
According to a report by China Daily, 39 suspects were arrested during a 10-day operation (code-named ‘Jufeng-4’) by authorities between April 10 and 20.
The gangs were active in a number of different cities throughout the Pearl River Delta according to Lin Weixiong, the director of Guangdong Provincial Department of Public Security’s Criminal Investigation Bureau, at a press conference on Wednesday.
The laws surrounding traffic accidents in China benefit pedestrians who are hit but not killed by cars. According to a Slate article in 2015 entitled, ‘Why Drivers in China Intentionally Kill the Pedestrians They Hit,’ it costs a driver significantly more if a victim is injured in an accident:
The compensation for killing a victim in a traffic accident is relatively small – amounts typically range from USD30,000 to USD50,000 – 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 USD400,000 for the first 23 years of his care.
Hence the reason many Chinese don’t look both ways before crossing a street – they could walk away (or limp away, ideally) with half a million dollars.
If you still haven't seen the viral video of these guys in action, we highly recommend the following (VPN on): Fake Car Accidents: A Video Compilation.
READ MORE: Elderly woman pretends to have been hit by stationary bus
[Image via Slate]
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