Safety Legislation and Technical Standards

Whenever a violation of the rules and regulations causes damage, this constitutes an offense according to Art. 823 Para. 2 Civil Code (BGB), that is, if negligence can be proven and the regulations violated come under the heading of protective laws. This will clear the way for indemnification. 

The same general panoramic view also permits a different type of approach. A statutory offense in the domain of ecology (Art. 311c ff. Penal Code (StGB)) resulting in actual damage will always simultaneously constitute a violation of a liability standard involving mandatory indemnification and will force the authorities to intervene. 

The interlinking of liability, sanction, and loss prevention (protection from danger) is a necessary measure, A legal system confined to subsequent indemnification and sanctions would be just as ineffective and inadequate as preventive protection from danger which, in the case of failure, is not supplemented by the obligation to provide indemnification and, in the case of violation, is not empowered to impose the proper sanctions. 

Safety science and safety technology are dynamic, geared to continuous development and radical changes. The development is characterized by more and more new findings and the effort to find profitable applications for this knowledge in daily practice. 

Technical progress is faster than progress in other areas of life. Thousands of new technical products appear annually on the market. In the highly developed industrialized countries, half the labor force is engaged in manufacturing or selling products which were completely unknown at the turn of the century. 

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The Product Safety Directives are all fairly technical and succinct. Their objective is to provide member states with the guidance needed to adjust or to generate legislation. The Directives refer explicitly to the safety requirements and performance standards drawn up by the European Committee for Standardization (CEN) and the European Committee for Electrotechnical... 

Health and Safety legislation has a direct effect on the responsibility, authority, accountability and liability towards the safety management approach of any operator. It explicitly requires the operator to assess and manage the risk (which includes technical airworthiness risk) during the lifetime of the product/facility. This proactive approach is the backbone of current harmonised European Safety, Health and Enviromnental Standards and Regulations the term reasonably practicable enshrined in this act is interpreted as a balance between risk and cost. 

In Washington State, HB 1024 provides definitions and establishes a process under which the State of Washington can identify, analyze, and approve alternative flame-retardants that could come into use in Washington to replace the use of deca-BDE.100 The Departments of Ecology and Health, as well as a newly created fire safety committee, will have to determine that any proposed alternative flame-retardant is safer and technically feasible and meets applicable fire safety standards as a replacement for deca-BDE in televisions, computers, and domestic upholstered furniture. No prohibition on the use of deca-BDE in these applications can go into effect prior to January 1, 2011, provided suitable alternative flame-retardants are available. The bill places a prohibition on the use of deca-BDE in mattresses beginning January 1, 2008 however, this has no practical impact, since deca-BDE is not actually used in residential mattresses. All uses of deca-BDE not specifically mentioned in the legislation are exempt. 

A. The Principle of Strict (Direct) Liability. Liability standards may be regarded as the oldest form of safety legislation. At the beginning of the industrial revolution, there were no regulations in existence that covered the erection and operation of a technical plant because technical development was one jump ahead of the law. There were only general laws... 

Long ago, fuel cells ceased to be a scientific and technical curiosity or mere examples for a possible direct conversion of the chentical energy of different fuels to electrical energy. Different types of fuel cells are now manufactured in tens and hundreds of pieces, and some will soon number several thousand. Production figures counted in the millions are not now beyond reach, in view of portable and transport needs. This calls for formulating documents on legislation and standardization addressing the conditions of fuel cell use (e.g., questions of safety) as well as of fuel cell construction. 

Especially translations of some legislative provisions (Figure 1.6), first and foremost standards of any type, cause potential uncertainty in terms used in specific countries, which might lead to incoherent interpretations by employers and employees, as well as by supervising institutions within internationalization of industrial activities. Therefore, it is important to look for equality in the usage of notions in occupational health and safety management, as well as in safety of technical systems. 

In any case, the considerations in this chapter regarding safety would then have to be adapted. At first, CMS are subject to legislation and standardization, so any modification of the displayed image or any display of other kinds of information must be agreed with the responsible bodies, before safety considerations even can start. It will have to be demonstrated that additional content on the screen does not impair the base function and the recognition of trafiftc situations by the driver, which is not a question within the scope of functional safety. Only after doing so, the functional safety analyses and the safety concept have to be extended to include the effects of potential technical failures, which could impair the function. 

The basic issue to be resolved boiled down to the question of how to combine due process with adequate technical review in a procedure that would meet safety concerns expeditiously. The Joint Committee particularly regarded this as a problem that would become more acute in the future as more reactor applications came before the AEC. The agency believed that the 1957 amendments left it little choice but to apply the mandatory-hearing requirement as it did. But it maintained that it could, through modification of the hearing format and procedures, streamline the process without further major legislation. And as it developed more technical standards and criteria, the Commission asserted that it could speed up the time to reach decisions. 

This database provides scientific and technical information on the environment. The information is compiled from a set of Royal Society of Chemistry databases. Environmental Chemistry, Health Safety contains information on chemicals deemed to cause actual or potential problems to humans or the environment. The subject coverage is broad and includes such varied topics as animal and microbiological hazards, biological effects of chemicals and radiation, corporate environmental issues, legislation and standards, transportation and storage of chemicals, waste management. Environmental Chemistry, Health Safety can be used to document risk assessment, to assess potential environmental, health, and safety problems, and to study a company s environmental and safety experiences. 

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