Han Ximn

    ximhan@126.com

    TWO children, who were left unattended and playing on roads in Longhua New Area, were run over by passing cars in two separate accidents Monday.

    At around 11 a.m., a resident surnamed Xu was driving along the road east of the Guanlan River and his car ran over a 3-year-old boy, identified as Liu, when it turned right. Liu died later in a hospital.

    A police investigation showed that Liu was playing alone on the road near his aunt’s shop. Liu lived with his grandma and his aunt after he was abandoned by his mother. His aunt’s shop was near a slope. According to a witness, who was playing with his grandson, the car came up the slope and turned left. It hit the child and rolled over him. The driver stopped the car when he heard the witness shouting. The boy was rushed to the hospital by his aunt.

    The driver was held by police.

    The other accident happened at around 5 p.m. on a road in Longsheng New Village when a driver turned right and hit an 8-year-old girl, surnamed Tong. A video provided by police showed that the girl was chasing a dog around a car that was parked on the roadside. She was squatting in the middle of the road to look for the dog under the car, when the other car suddenly appeared and hit Tong as it turned right. The driver got out of the car after the accident and called police after seeing that the girl had been run over.

    This was the third similarly fatal case in a month. On Dec. 3, a 2-year-old child, identified as Jian who was also left unattended in the underground parking lot of a residential building in Futian District, was run over by a car coming down the slope of the parking lot’s entrance. The child was playing on a scooter and had fallen to the ground just before the car entered. The child was left playing there by his grandma, a cleaner who had gone to fetch cleaning tools.

    In the past three years, Shenzhen reported a total of 178 accidents involving preschool children, resulting in 84 deaths and 114 injuries. Among the accidents, parents or guardians have been held liable for 14, or 7.91 percent of the total.

    In a case in May in Longhua, a 4-year-old child, Huang Tianhao, was killed as he crossed the street in front of a car near Shangyousong New Village. His mother, Zeng Sixiu, was held partially responsible for the accident as she hadn’t helped the child cross the street.

    Police have warned parents or guardians to take care of their children near roads and in parking lots. The three-year statistics from police show that 105 accidents happened on ordinary urban roads, resulting in 38 deaths and 76 injuries. Nearly half of the deaths in the past three years, or 35 in total, happened on roads in residential and commercial areas rather than public roads. (Han Ximin)