Children must be accompanied and supervised by adults when riding elevators

    The Special Equipment Safety Law of the People's Republic of China will take effect on January 1, 2014. Under the provisions, children must be accompanied and supervised by adults when riding elevators, and liquefied petroleum gas cylinders used in restaurants, homes and other places must come from registered, legitimate channels.

    The law states that special equipment includes eight major categories such as boilers, elevators, passenger ropeways and large amusement facilities. These devices generally operate under high pressure, high temperature, high altitude and high speed conditions, are flammable, explosive and prone to falling from height, and pose relatively great danger to personal and property safety.

    The law points out that in the production stage, manufacturers are responsible for the quality of special equipment; in the business stage, special equipment sold and leased must meet safety requirements, and lessors bear the obligation of safety management and maintenance for the use of special equipment; in the use stage, where accidents frequently occur, user units are responsible for the safety of special equipment use and bear the obligation to scrap special equipment, and shall bear compensation liability in accordance with the law for damage caused by accidents.

    The law stipulates that departments responsible for the safety supervision and administration of special equipment shall carry out key safety supervision and inspection of special equipment in schools, kindergartens, stations and wharves, shopping malls and parks and other public gathering places, and shall regularly publish the safety status of special equipment to the public. At the same time, regulatory authorities are required to establish complete supervision and management archives and information query systems for special equipment registered for use in accordance with the law, so as to facilitate public inquiries.

    Smoking on bullet trains subject to a maximum fine of 2,000 yuan

    The Regulations on Railway Safety Management, which take effect on January 1, 2014, provide that railways designed for trains with a speed of more than 120 kilometers per hour shall be fully enclosed, and passengers who smoke on bullet trains, throw objects from trains, forcibly board or refuse to get off shall be fined between 500 yuan and 2,000 yuan.

    The regulations specify that, in accordance with the strict requirements of high-speed railway construction on engineering geological conditions, a supervision system for engineering geological surveys shall be implemented for high-speed railway construction to ensure the quality of engineering geological surveys; in response to the prominent problem that land subsidence caused by groundwater extraction endangers the operational safety of high-speed railways, it is stipulated that groundwater extraction is prohibited within 200 meters on each side of high-speed railway lines, and in land subsidence areas outside this range, where groundwater extraction endangers high-speed railway safety, groundwater prohibition zones or restriction zones shall be designated.

    In addition, the regulations also cancel some administrative licensing items set in the Regulations on Railway Transport Safety Protection, such as: approval for setting up or widening railway crossings and pedestrian crossings, certification of railway transport management information systems, qualification licensing for railway dangerous goods carriers, qualification licensing for railway dangerous goods consignors, and approval for carrying over-limit, over-length, overweight and concentrated-load goods.