Photo: Sina Weibo

Two people died and another two were injured in a traffic accident involving a Mercedes-Maybach sedan in Chengdu, Southwest China’s Sichuan Province on Sunday evening. The driver of the vehicle involved has been taken into custody by local police. 

According to a statement released on Monday by the traffic management department of the public security bureau in Chengdu, the accident occurred in Wuhou district around 7:33 pm on Sunday, when the vehicle collided into several normal and electrified bicycles.

The accident left two dead and two injured, with the injured people transferred to a local hospital for treatment with the help of the police. 

The 37-year-old driver surnamed Zhang has been taken into custody by police while the public security department is investigating into the case. 

Several video clips recorded by dashcams and by pedestrians at the scene show the black Mercedes-Maybach sedan travelling at high speed severing into non-motorized lane and the sidewalk. 

Video clips recorded by the pedestrians show that the driver in black T-shirt behaving abnormally with his arms and legs waving after the vehicle eventually dashed into the roadside green belt and stopped with driver’s airbag deployed. 

Some netizens questioned whether the driver was drunk driving or was sick, others suspected he was driving under the influence of drugs. 

Another video clip shows that when the luxury car was passing an entrance to a residential compound, it suddenly directly swerved into the non-motorized lane, scattering the crowd, and subsequently colliding with pedestrians and cyclists, including sending a shared bicycle flying several tens of meters away. 

According to media reports, the driver was restrained by the police at the scene. Several ambulances arrived at the accident site to treat the injured and transfer the seriously injured to hospital. 

Global Times