'Drive drunk or you can't marry'
Guy obeys... and kills 1, hurts 7 in crash
April 12, 2006
A SHANGHAI man's first meeting with his girlfriend's parents turned
into a nightmare after he killed one of her relatives and injured
seven others while driving drunk.
Not only was he jailed for the offence, he is being blamed for the
accident by the relatives.
This is despite them being the ones who forced him to drink alcohol
during the meal. They also later insisted that he drive them
around.
The man, who was identified only as Zhang, had been dating his
girlfriend for several years and decided to meet her parents for a
meal in Jinshan District last October, reported the Shanghai
Morning Post.
During the meal, he was persuaded by her relatives to drink half a
bottle of yellow wine to show his sincerity towards his
girlfriend.
As the group was about to leave for home, one of the relatives, who
was identified as Mr Yao, fell off his motorcycle and injured his
face.
The relatives asked Zhang to take
Mr Yao to the hospital for treatment in his minivan.
Zhang refused as he felt dizzy from drinking too much.
But the relatives were not going to take no for an answer.
'Today is your first visit to our family,' one of the relatives
told him.
'If you don't drive Yao to hospital, I won't recognise you as a
member of our family.'
Zhang eventually agreed.
But some of the other relatives wanted to go to Fengjing to enjoy
themselves and insisted that Zhang drop them off before he took Mr
Yao to the hospital.
The group never made it to Fengjing.
Zhang lost control of his speeding minivan in heavy rain and
ploughed into a concrete barrier near the town.
Mr Yao later died in hospital.
The other passengers suffered serious injuries, including broken
bones and ruptured spleens.
Only one woman, clutching her child, remained conscious throughout
the accident.
'I heard a loud noise when the van hit the barrier,' she told the
paper.
'When I looked around, no one else was in the van. They had all
been thrown out.'
The Jinshan People's Court sentenced Zhang to three years' jail and
ordered him to pay the relatives 460,000 yuan ($92,400) over the
next seven years for medical expenses.
Zhang told the court that he could not be expected to take all the
blame for the accident.
'The accident may not have happened if I had taken Yao to the
nearest hospital directly, but some relatives insisted on going to
Fengjing first,' he said.
He added that he was disappointed because the relatives had
insisted he drive Mr Yao to the hospital even though he tried to
refuse as he had been drinking.
But when the accident happened, they asked him to take
responsibility for the crash.
