Wealthy young sports car drivers dodge the cost of accidents
If you're under 28 you can't drive one of the Italian roadsters unless daddy pays for cover - and if you wreck the car he picks up the tab too
Owning a Ferrari may be the dream of many young men, but they need to have rich fathers if they are going to drive the car out of the showroom.
In Hong Kong, insurance companies will not offer policies for Ferraris to anyone under 28 years old. So if young racers wreck their cars, it is normally daddy who picks up the bill.
But often the price of the damage they leave in their wake is much greater. A recent spate of high-speed accidents has drawn media attention to the problems that arise when fast cars are in the hands of rich young men.
In March, Ling Gu, the son of President Hu Jintao's closest aide, Ling Jihua, was killed when his speeding Ferrari crashed in Beijing. Two women who were also in the car were seriously injured.
International media outlets report that online searches for the words "Ferrari crash" have been blocked on the mainland since the crash, underscoring the political sensitivity of the accident.
In May, a wealthy 31-year-old Chinese expatriate who crashed his Ferrari into a taxi, killing himself and two others, sparked outrage in Singapore.
More recently in Thailand, Vorayuth Yoovidhya, the 20-something grandson of the creator of the Red Bull energy drink, was accused of running over a policeman with his Ferrari in Bangkok.