IT’S as horrific as it is hard to believe for the average motorist.

When a driver in China accidentally hits a pedestrian, they will often run over the victim a few more times to ensure they are dead.

Shocking CCTV footage reveals cars stopping after a collision and then deliberately reversing to crush whoever they have hit, whether it’s an innocent grandmother or a toddler.

In 2008, local news reports revealed that a driver named Zhao Xiao Cheng had run over a 64-year-old man in Taizhou, Zhejiang province. He then rolled his Volkswagen Passat back and forth over the elderly pedestrian five times.

In this confronting video from 2010, a BMW driver hits a three-year-old boy during the morning rush hour in Xinyi, Jiangsu province. He then hops out of the car and guides it back over the child three times.

In January, a woman was caught on video repeatedly driving over an elderly man who had fallen in the snow and in May, a truck driver was filmed running over a young boy four times.

This April, Slate reports, a BMW knocked down a two-year-old girl and drove over her head at a fruit market in Foshan in Guangdong province. When the girl’s grandmother shouted, “Stop! You’ve hit a child!” the unlicensed driver backed up over the girl and forward again. She then got out and offered the family a deal: “Don’t say that I was driving the car. Say it was my husband. We can give you money.”

Prosecutors later accepted her claim it had been an accident, and recommended the court reduce her sentence to less than four years in prison.

Meanwhile, Passat driver Zhao was found not guilty of intentional homicide, but of negligence, after claiming he thought he was driving over a bag of rubbish. He paid out about $US70,000 compensation.

The BMW driver who ran over the boy and then sped off was also only charged with accidentally causing death, again saying he confused the victim with a pile of rubbish or cardboard box.

“Double-hit cases” are not unusual in Asia, and the reason is this: If you injure someone, you have to pay for the their care for a lifetime. But if you kill them, you only pay once.

Motorists who kill people in road accidents typically pay between $US30,000 and $US50,000, while caring for someone seriously injured can run into the millions. Drivers appear confident that they can bribe local officials or hire lawyers to avoid murder charges.

The most horrible “hit-to-kill” cases occur when drivers kill people who were not even seriously injured to begin with. A local report from 2011 said a five-year-old boy had been walking home from school in Luzhou City when he was hit by a truck. Witnesses said the boy then got up, before the truck rolled back to hit and kill him.

In some cases, outraged members of the public have taken justice into their own hands, beating one rich driver in Zhengzhou, Henan province who had allegedly run over a six-year-old twice.

Occasionally, perpetrators are even brought to justice. When Yao Jiaxin stabbed a cyclist he had hit in Xian, Shaanxi province to make sure they were dead in 2010, he was executed. In 2014, Zhang Qingda was given 15 years in prison for hitting an elderly man in Jiayu Pass, Gansu province, with his truck and circling around to run him over again.

China and Taiwan have passed laws over hit-to-kill cases, but the justice system often seems to accept unlikely excuses.

In 2013, Shanghai was mocked for installing 60 CCTV cameras at one intersection, Gizmodo reported, but it appears that isn’t enough to deter reckless and ruthless drivers.

Road safety is a serious problem in China. Xinhua news agency said in 2012 that poorly maintained roads and bad driving habits result in about 70,000 deaths and 300,000 injuries a year.

In this chaotic landscape, many motorists seem to believe they can get away with murder.