OK. If you go too fast when you hit them, yes, they go up in the air. So, I slow down. Problem is, I have to run over them again and again until they get 'knocked out'. What I would like is to just hit them once, and down they go.
Course there's no blood in Bully. No one gets 'killed' either. I don't think that's going to change. Running over them with a car isn't going to 'kill' them either. Just like shoving 'people' off high places, or beating them to a pulp, or blowing them up with super-powerful Firecrackers or shooting them point-blank in the face with a Spud Gun, doesn't 'kill' anyone, even though in RL it just might.
Point is, the game is about violence, just as many others are. It's just imaginary violence, those figures on the screen are just pixels and don't exist as a real-life entity anymore than my ashtray, which by the way doesn't scream out in pain when I put out my smoke in it.