Police blamed for car accident

NANNING -- A police officer who was behind the wheel of a patrol car when it hit and injured seven people last week in the southwestern Chinese city of Nanning should take full responsibility for the accident, local police said Wednesday.

The officer, identified by the surname Liao, was driving a police vehicle with another officer inside the car when it hit two electric cyclists and then hit another five pedestrians near a market at around 5 pm on August 21.

The police bureau in Nanning, capital of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, announced in a statement Wednesday that they have finished the investigation, which found Liao fully liable for the accident.

However, Liao was not likely to go to jail, as blood tests show that he did not have alcohol in his system at the time of the accident.

According to the statement, Liao was driving at a speed of 45 km per hour, beyond the speed limit of 40 km, and the officer failed to take proper measures to prevent the collisions.

Two people were severely injured, but their injuries were not life-threatening. As of Wednesday, three of the seven injured had already been discharged from hospital.

The road accident grabbed headlines in China after a netizen posted it on Sina Weibo, saying the police car hit civilians and dragged an electric bike for over 100 meters before stopping.

Many netizens have questioned whether the police were drunk and whether they had attempted to flee the scene of the accident, as they did not immediately stop after hitting the pedestrians.

Police on Wednesday explained that the car stopped about 60 meters ahead of the spot where the collisions occurred, which was a reasonable distance for a vehicle to finally stop and there were no signs that the driver had accelerated after hitting the pedestrians.

The statement said that Liao was on duty when the accident happened as he and the other officer were on their way back to a police station after attending a meeting downtown, which means that he was not using the car for personal reasons, which is banned in the country.