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China Driving Subject 4 (Small Car) study materials
China Driving Subject 4 (Small Car) study resources

China Driving Subject 4 (Small Car): Traffic Regulations and Legal Liability (交通法规与法律责任)

China Driving Subject 4 (Small Car) · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.

All guide sections

Traffic Regulations and Legal Liability (交通法规与法律责任)

This domain is the arithmetic of the written test: blood-alcohol thresholds, demerit points, licence consequences and the tiers of criminal liability. Questions are usually numbers, so precision matters more than general understanding.

Drink driving

  • 20 mg to under 80 mg per 100 ml is 饮酒后驾驶: six-month licence suspension, a 1,000–2,000 yuan fine and 12 demerit points.
  • 80 mg per 100 ml and above is 醉酒驾驶: licence revoked, criminal liability as dangerous driving, and five years before you may re-apply.
  • Commercial vehicles are punished far more heavily: 15 days detention, 5,000 yuan and a five-year ban for drink driving; a ten-year ban for drunk driving, with no return to commercial driving afterwards.
  • A drink-driving crash that constitutes a serious offence brings a lifetime ban.

Demerit points (2022 rules)

  • 12: drink driving, using a false plate or licence, driving a class you are not licensed for, reversing or driving against traffic on the expressway.
  • 9: occupying the expressway emergency lane, driving without a plate or with it deliberately obscured.
  • 6: running a red light; speeding 20–50% over the limit.
  • 3: using a hand-held phone while driving; failing to yield at a pedestrian crossing.

Criminal tiers

Causing serious injury or death through a traffic offence: up to three years. Fleeing the scene or other especially serious circumstances: three to seven years. Death caused by the act of fleeing: more than seven years. Fleeing after a fatal crash also ends your driving for life.

Worked example

A driver is tested at 95 mg per 100 ml. That is above 80, so it is drunk driving, not drink driving: revocation, a criminal case and a five-year bar on re-applying - not the six-month suspension and fine answer. One threshold decides the whole question.

Traps

  • Confusing the 20 mg and 80 mg thresholds.
  • Mixing the five-year (non-commercial) and ten-year (commercial) bans.
  • Assuming points replace fines; they are additional.
  • Treating a lifetime ban as applying only to repeat offenders.