Forums > Living in Kunming > Crazy car accident John, I was in an accident recently albeit not as crazy as your incident, however as a result I've come to learn a fair bit about the law regarding these situations.
Mine was a lot simpler, a scooter hit the back of my car whilst I was turning right. Despite it hitting the back of my car it was deemed to be 70% my fault - merely because I am a car and he is a scooter and I was turning. Unfortunately I don't think Tonyaod is right when he says that car drivers are protected over scooter drivers - this seems to certainly not be the case as the stance is taken that cars are 'flesh wrapped in metal' and scooters are 'metal wrapped in flesh' and so everything is done to protect the scooters/bikes/peds.
In my incident, the only reason that they assumed 30% of the blame was because they had an illegal passenger on the back. Unfortunately she fell off and broke her arm and despite her being an illegal passenger we are still liable for our 70% of her hospital costs which stacked up to 4 WAN by the end.
What I'm saying is that unfortunately it seems that the illegality of the others actions seem immaterial, and as a car you are likely to be deemed more liable. On the scene the police should have given you a police report - they have to do this. In it it should lay out the situation of the accident and apportion blame as they deem appropriate. (As in my case 70-30).
This blame division has been critical for me as the 30% they were liable for stopped them taking the piss at the hospital and getting every last thing checked. For you it sounds like no injury occurred - did they go to hospital immediately after the accident? If not then officially no injury took place and you are not liable for anything.
My incident is still being sorted, 1 year on, reasonably amicably, although I too received death threats and injury threats from them afterwards. Your situation sounds a lot more set-up than mine, and the intimidation sounds a lot more organised. In my case it was more emotional intimidation so we could more easily ignore it.
From my experience if you have a police report, and even if the report says you were 100% responsible, you should only be liable for repairs to their scooter/your car which your insurance company will cover. If there was injury it gets more complicated, but your insurance will still cover it. DO NOT GIVE ANY OTHER MONEY AT ALL to these people. Various sums were demanded from us but we refused and in the end there is not much they can do. We are paying back via our insurance everything we legally have to and its all agreed between us and the injured, although ridiculously it is still going to court as the driver is refusing to pay his share to the injured passenger.
As for the death threats, its horrible and very unpleasant, but I would be very surprised if they weren't hollow. Its horrible when things like this happen, but you should try not to let it affect your feelings about kunming as a whole - these things happen everywhere in the world. One of the biggest things I love about Kunming is how much safer it feels than the west, but I can understand that incidents like this can shake that feeling somewhat.
If you want any more details about how our situation was resolved hit me back. It might be useful for you as a case study.
