Accident on the Outskirts of Shanghai
(Based on true events…)
“Would?” by Alice in Chains played in my phone’s headset as bus line 242 arrived at its stop…
It was a usually hectic day, on a heavily trafficked road, outskirts of Shanghai…
The sky was smog grey. The December air damp, 6 Celsius and bitter with diesel and PM2.
A fast food deliveryman on an e-bike, coffin nail dangling from his mouth, was racing a yellow light and hooked a left at the front gate of an adjacent apartment compound.
From his blind side, an 18-wheeler, burgundy semi-truck, hauling gravel…
The trucker, a buzzcut shushu, blasting love ballads, singing to distorted speakers…
… a sudden 90+ decibel horn…
The deliveryman met the semi’s grill and pancaked beneath rubber and steel centipedes.
The deliveryman’s bones and bike pulverized; his body split in two; his torso, limbs, wholly severed; machinery and mangled orange jumpsuit, dark blood, innards, appendages carpeting the asphalt…
The truck driver bumping, thumping over the body, tried in vain to brake but skidded out, and struck a pedestrian, a schoolgirl, crushing her foot, before he twisted the steering wheel, jackknifed and collided into a domino apartment building’s withered facade.
Passersby froze and stared at the fallen young girl as she writhed, wept and wheezed, clutched what was left of her foot and screamed for her mother.
Passersby pointed phones and photos, panoramically live-streamed the scene, and texted texts.
The trucker, in shock, sat hugging the wheel, twitching, tears streaming down his red, cherubic cheeks… Lachrymose love ballads still playing… “我想你 “…
A circle of onlookers formed around the girl. Another formed around the truck.
Locals looked over the idling vehicle while its driver remained still in the cab.
The girl’s red grandparents arrived. Her grandpa slapping on the hood of the semi, on the door, finally hurling a silver baijiu bottle that blistered into pieces, denting the windshield.
The police arrived. Cordoned off the area. Two ambulances and purple paramedics collecting body parts, carrying away the shrieking schoolgirl on a gurney.
Blue policemen restrained the girl’s relatives and were finally able to coax the trucker out…
Social media lit up with different factions assigning the blame to various parties.
Some censured the deliveryman for running a yellow light. Many faulted the trucker for driving too fast. A few placed the responsibility solely on the Japanese manufacturer of the truck.
The girl’s foot had to be amputated, and her family sued the trucking company.
The trucker sued the delivery company.
The delivery company blamed the deliveryman and refused to pay compensation to his family…
A couple weeks later, the deliveryman’s family held a protest at the intersection, hoisting enlarged shenfenzheng portrait photos of the young deliveryman, unfurling long red banners that blocked and snarled morning traffic.
They held hand-written signs, calligraphic claims the apartment complex had an unsafe parking lot and front gate area; demands for indemnification. A female monk in white robes burned sheets of paper, knelt and said prayers in the middle of the street.
The deliveryman’s mother shrieked and prostrated in the road and had to be carried away by policemen. The protesters were arrested and held in administrative detention for five days.
About a month after the protest, the municipality installed a flashing amber “caution” road sign at the intersection.
The whole incident was scrubbed from social media and news outlets at the special request of a local land development company…
