The other day a law firm XYX from Sweden contacted us for an opinion on a car accident that happened to one of their clients in China.
Mike , together with his translator were on the way to a factory meeting somewhere between Jinan & Qingdao.
For this travel he booked a car for the day that would bring them from the safe confinements of the Jinan city walls into the the countryside 3 hours away. It was spring & farmers on the road were all getting into gear to tend to their fields.
Somewhere on a straight lonely country road bordered with trees, the driver fell asleep…..& hit another car at 70km/h. Mike & the driver got badly injured, while the translator only got some minor bruises. It took another 3 gruesome hours before paramedics could tend to the injured.
With the assistance of his travel insurance company Mike was flown out of China 24 hours later.
After a revalidation period the insurance company asked Mike to get all papers in order to claim from the insurance of the car owner.
It’s here that our lawyers discovered that the 3rd party insurance for the car was only covered for an amount of up to RMB 10,000 (USD 1470 or Euro 1000). One can easily imagine that this was bearly enough to cover the cost of repatration & recovery at home…….. Now Mike is facing off with his insurance company…
An advice we’d like to give anyone renting a car for a long distance:
1) Make sure the car is in a new state or well maintained.
2) Preferably take a taxi driver for the day. they’ve got proper insurance & will hopefully drive with more skills. Or as an alternative mayby your business partner or friend can recommend a driver.
3) If possible try out the driver for a short trip before committing for a long distance journey.
4) Make sure the driver is well rested. Too often will a driver be at the wheel for 24 hours on end. Not really an ideal start of a long-distance trip.
5) In case you feel the driver is reckless, ask him to slow down or drive more carefully. If that doesn’t help, please ask him to stop & get out of the car. If you’re in the middle of no-where get off at the next city or village but GET OFF. Don’t be naive & think that accidents only happen to others.
I once had the bad luck that my faithfull driver couldn’t commit to pick me up at Beijing airport & sent someone else instead. I unfortunately disgarded the above rules ’cause
Two pretty ladies in miniskirt were driving a huge Jeep. On departure I already fell something was amiss. The driver lady never changed gear & stayed in 2nd the whole way…. At a speed of 40 km’h we traveled the 15 km highway into the city…..
While other cars were hurling past us at 120 km/h……. & nearly missed us on several occasions. Nobody was expected such a slow moving vehicle on the high-way.
Finally I asked the driver what was going on: She shily replayed that ”she never drove a car before but because my ‘faithful’ driver had asked her for this favor she couldn’t refuse……”
So please try to be safe on the Chinese roads at all times !
