[vadman]

One thing baffles me. If parents knew (there is security camera footage) that their child was run over several times because some asshole made a RATIONAL choice; and then said parents hired a bunch of guys to disappear the asshole, suddenly the expected penalty would change, and so would the rational choice. (There probably wouldn't be much of an investigation, either.) So why aren't they doing it? If the government can't/won't set the proper incentives for the assholes not to murder, why can't the people do it themselves? Desperate times call for desperate measures...

ADDENDUM: admittedly my comment above is emotional. Obviously not every accident ends in the driver running over the victim several times. But from the article and from some of the comments, I got an impression that these cases are not THAT unusual, and it's not just a case of a Western newspaper publishing a sensationalist Sinophobic article.

[kevinchen]

If you drive in a Chinese city, you're pretty well off. So I would bet that many cases, the victim's family can't afford stuff like that.

The few cases mentioned where something happened to the driver were probably the exceptions where the victim also had money.

[vadman]

Good point, stupid of me not to think of it. So in most cases, the murderer escapes without even paying the "murder fee"? This is even worse...