Chinese Girl Hit by Car (Photo : Weibo)
The mobile phone has been blamed for killing a number of users, ranging from people who take selfies in dangerous spots to pedestrians too busy to notice they are already walking towards their death.
Added to that list is a Chinese mother whose two-year-old daughter died last week after the toddler was hit by an SUV while the mother was too busy fiddling with her mobile phone, Xinhua reported.
The two-minute video of the incident was posted on Chinese social media and has become viral with almost 30,000 hits. The young girl walked ahead of her mother who was trailing the child because she was busy with her mobile phone. Unknown to her, the child has wandered into the front of a black car in which the driver just boarded and moved forward as the toddler walked into the driver’s blind zone.
People became more engrossed with the cellphone when its function went beyond call and text. With the advent of wi-fi, more people access the internet using their mobile phones. In China, about 710 million people, or 92 percent of internet users go online using their smartphones, New York Times pointed out.
The girl, Tutu, is not the first to die in China because of parental neglect. In April, a similar incident in Anhui Province occurred involving a two-year-old boy who ran in the center of the road while the mother was busy with her cellphone. Another boy was also hit by a vehicle in a parking zone and died in August 2015 in Henan Province, while the mother was checking her handheld unit.
Tutu’s mother was severely criticized in Weibo, China’s microblogging site. A user, named Xiaodingdangmaimaijimiqui asked, “If the mobile phone was so much fun, then why had you given birth to the child?”
Another netizen, freeermiao, wrote, “It is a bloody lesson. Everyone should be alerted not to play with a smartphone while walking. God knows how regretful the mother is.”
After the incident in Hunan, the Shandong provincial prosecutor’s office challenged parents on Weibo, “Put down your phone. Save the children!”
