Mobile Toilet Cross-Province Incident
The mobile toilet cross-province incident refers to a situation where a woman, while using a mobile toilet, has the toilet carried away by a vehicle and taken onto the highway, resulting in her being transported from one place to another.
The mobile toilet cross-province incident is not an isolated case; similar incidents have occurred multiple times before. For example, on May 11th, a woman in Guangdong entered a mobile toilet, which was then carried away by a vehicle and taken onto the highway without her knowledge. The driver was also unaware that someone was inside. When she emerged, she found herself in Hunan. In another incident, a 26-year-old woman named Zhang at a highway service area in Hebei entered a mobile toilet, which was then dragged off the ground by a hook-and-chain truck and rushed onto the Beijing-Hong Kong-Macau Expressway, embarking on a 28-kilometer “flying man” mode. This accident lasted a full 23 minutes until a patrolling traffic police officer noticed and stopped the vehicle. At that time, Zhang's mobile phone location showed she was in Baoding, having traveled past two more service areas than her intended destination.
These incidents have exposed numerous issues within the mobile toilet industry. Firstly, operators or management parties have failed to fulfill their safety obligations, neglecting to check whether the toilet is empty before transportation, resulting in people being inside when the toilet is moved without being detected. Secondly, the domestic mobile toilet industry generally suffers from the chronic problem of “prioritizing transportation over inspection”. Out of over 100,000 mobile toilet dispatches annually across the country, only 37% of drivers follow a complete inspection process, significantly increasing the likelihood of such incidents. Thirdly, some mobile toilet product manuals are flawed, lacking warning clauses such as “Do not lock the door from the inside while using the toilet,” which places users in danger without their knowledge. Fourthly, while good sound insulation in mobile toilets is normally an advantage, in this context, it becomes a disadvantage, as it traps cries for help inside, making it difficult for outsiders to detect the danger faced by users inside the toilet.
