Senate Bill No. 213
(By Senator Craigo)
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[Introduced January 23, 1998; referred to the Committee
on Transportation; and then to the Committee on Finance.]
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A BILL to amend article seventeen, chapter seventeen-c of the
code of West Virginia, one thousand nine hundred thirty-one,
as amended, by adding thereto a new section, designated
section ten-a, relating to enforcing size, weight and load
restrictions of vehicles; allowing weighing, measuring and
examining of stopped or parked vehicles; providing criminal
penalties for violations; and providing presumptions of
operation.
Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
That article seventeen, chapter seventeen-c of the code of
West Virginia, one thousand nine hundred thirty-one, as amended,
be amended by adding thereto a new section, designated section
ten-a, to read as follows:
§17C-17-10a. Officers may weigh, measure stopped or parked
vehicles and require removal or rearrangement
of excess loads; penalties.
(a) Any police officer or employee of the division of
highways designated by the commissioner of highways as a member
of an official weighing crew may require the driver or other
person attending a vehicle stopped on or along any highway to:
(1) Submit the vehicle to a weighing with portable or
stationary weighing devices;
(2) Submit the vehicle to a measuring;
(3) Submit to any other examination necessary to determine
if operation of the vehicle would be in violation of any of the
provisions of this article; or
(4) Drive the vehicle to the nearest weighing device, but
only if the weighing device is within ten miles of the place
where the vehicle is stopped or parked.
(b) In the event that a police officer or employee of the
division of highways designated by the commissioner of highways
as a member of an official weighing crew
finds
an unattended
vehicle stopped or parked on or along any highway and
has reason
to believe that the vehicle may not be lawfully operated due to
a weight restriction contained in this article the officer or
member of the weighing crew shall:
(1) If possible, weigh the vehicle;
(2) Have the vehicle towed to the nearest weighing device,
but only if the weighing device is within twenty miles of the
place where the vehicle is found; or
(3) Place a self-adhesive sticker on the windshield notifying a potential driver, at a minimum:
(A) That the vehicle may not be operated on any highway
until it is weighed;
(B) Of the telephone number of a person or office to contact
to arrange for the weighing; and
(C) That any person who operates the vehicle prior to being
weighed is guilty of a misdemeanor and may be both fined and
imprisoned.
(c) Any person who operates a vehicle, upon which a self- adhesive sticker has been placed
, as provided for in subdivision
(3), subsection (b) of this section, on any highway
before the
vehicle is weighed, is guilty of a misdemeanor and, upon
conviction thereof, shall be fined not less than three hundred
nor more than two thousand dollars or confined in the county or
regional jail not more than nine months, or both fined and
imprisoned. Operating the vehicle on the way to the destination
at which the weighing will occur, in compliance with instructions
received by the appropriate authority, is not a violation of this
subsection.
(d) Whenever an officer or a member of an official weighing
crew determines that a vehicle may not lawfully be operated due
to the weight restrictions provided in this article, he or she
may require the driver to leave the vehicle where it is stopped
or to move the vehicle
to a suitable place and require that the
vehicle
remain standing until the vehicle is brought into conformity with the applicable restriction.
(e) In the event that material is unloaded from the vehicle
the owner, lessee or borrower of the vehicle
is responsible for
the material unloaded.
(f) When a vehicle is found stopped or parked on or along
side any highway that may not lawfully be operated because of its
weight, the person who operated the vehicle immediately preceding
its being stopped or parked is presumed to have operated the
vehicle in violation of the applicable provision of this article.
In the event that the identity of the operator cannot be
determined the owner of the vehicle is presumed to have operated
the vehicle in violation of the applicable provision of this
article.
(g) Any driver or person attending a vehicle who fails or
refuses to comply with any requirement or provision of this
section is guilty of a misdemeanor and, upon conviction thereof,
shall be fined not less than three hundred nor more than two
thousand dollars or confined in the county or regional jail not
more than nine months, or both fined and imprisoned.
(h) As used in this section, the word "vehicle" includes,
but is not limited to, a combination of vehicles.
NOTE: The purpose of this bill is to provide for the
measuring of overweight vehicles that are parked or stopped in an
attempt to avoid being weighed.
This section is new; therefore, strike-throughs and
underscoring have been omitted.