Senate Bill No. 581
(By Senators Hunter and Minear)
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[Introduced February 17, 2003; referred to the Committee on
Transportation; and then to the Committee on the Judiciary.]
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A BILL to amend and reenact section three, article one, chapter
twenty-four-a of the code of West Virginia, one thousand nine
hundred thirty-one, as amended, relating to motor carriers;
and providing certain exemptions for wrecker services.
Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
That section three, article one, chapter twenty-four-a of the
code of West Virginia, one thousand nine hundred thirty-one, as
amended, be amended and reenacted to read as follows:
ARTICLE 1. PURPOSES, DEFINITIONS AND EXEMPTIONS.
§24A-1-3. Exemptions from chapter.
(a) The provisions of this chapter, except where specifically
otherwise provided, do not apply to:
(1) Motor vehicles operated exclusively in the transportation
of United States mail or in the transportation of newspapers:
Provided, That the vehicles and their operators are subject to the safety rules promulgated by the commission;
(2) Motor vehicles owned and operated by the United States of
America, the state of West Virginia or any county, municipality or
county board of education, urban mass transportation authority
established and maintained pursuant to article twenty-seven,
chapter eight of this code, or by any of their departments, and any
motor vehicles operated under a contract with a county board of
education exclusively for the transportation of children to and
from school or other legitimate transportation for the schools as
the commission may specifically authorize;
(3) Motor vehicles used exclusively in the transportation of
agricultural or horticultural products, livestock, poultry and
dairy products from the farm or orchard on which they are raised or
produced to markets, processing plants, packing houses, canneries,
railway shipping points and cold storage plants, and in the
transportation of agricultural or horticultural supplies to farms
or orchards where they are to be used: Provided, That the vehicles
that are exempted by this subdivision and are also operated by
common carriers by motor vehicle or contract carriers by motor
vehicle, and their operators are subject to the safety and
insurance rules promulgated by the commission;
(4) Motor vehicles used exclusively in the transportation of
human or animal excreta;
(5) Motor vehicles used exclusively in ambulance service or duly chartered rescue squad service;
(6) Motor vehicles used exclusively for volunteer fire
department service;
(7) Motor vehicles used exclusively in the transportation of
coal from mining operations to loading facilities for further
shipment by rail or water carriers: Provided, That the vehicles
and their operators are subject to the safety rules promulgated by
the commission and the vehicles that are exempted by this
subdivision and are also operated by common carriers by motor
vehicle or contract carriers by motor vehicle, and their operators
are subject to the insurance rules promulgated by the commission;
(8) Motor vehicles used by petroleum commission agents and oil
distributors solely for the transportation of petroleum products
and related automotive products when the transportation is
incidental to the business of selling the products: Provided, That
the vehicles and their operators are subject to the safety rules
promulgated by the commission and the vehicles that are exempted by
this subdivision and are also operated by common carriers by motor
vehicle or contract carriers by motor vehicle, and their operators
are subject to the insurance rules promulgated by the commission;
(9) Motor vehicles owned, leased by or leased to any person
and used exclusively for the transportation of processed
source-separated recycled materials, generated by commercial,
institutional and industrial customers, transported free of charge from the customers to a facility for further processing: Provided,
That the vehicles and their operators shall be subject to the
safety rules promulgated by the commission and the vehicles that
are exempted by this subdivision and are also operated by common
carriers by motor vehicle or contract carriers by motor vehicle,
and their operators are subject to the insurance rules promulgated
by the commission;
(10) Motor vehicles specifically preempted from state economic
regulation of intrastate motor carrier operations by the provisions
of 49 U. S. C. §14501 as amended by title I, section 103 of the
federal "Interstate Commerce Commission Termination Act of 1995":
Provided, That the vehicles and their operators are subject to the
safety regulations promulgated by the commission and the vehicles
that are exempted by this subdivision and are also operated by
common carriers by motor vehicle or contract carriers by motor
vehicle, and their operators are subject to the insurance rules
promulgated by the commission;
(11) Motor vehicles designated by the West Virginia bureau of
senior services for use and operation by local county aging
programs: Provided, That the vehicles and their operators are
subject to the safety rules promulgated by the commission;
(12) Motor vehicles designated by the West Virginia division
of public transit operated by organizations that receive federal
grants from the federal transit administration: Provided, That the vehicles and their operators are subject to the safety and
insurance rules promulgated by the commission.
(b) In addition to the exemptions set out in subsection (a) of
this section, wrecker services:
(1) And the motor vehicles used by licensed wrecker services
in the transportation of wrecked or disabled motor vehicles are
exempt from weight, length, height and width limitations imposed on
other vehicles in this state;
(2) May not be required to be insured in amounts that exceed
the interstate commerce commission transportation insurance
requirements, unless those requirements are less than insurance
rules promulgated by the commission and otherwise required by the
state for motor carriers;
(3) May not be required to use only persons directly employed
by the wrecker service for clean-up operations resulting from
spillage accidents and other highway accidents that require
immediate clean up, but may hire independent contractors for
emergency clean up services;
(4) May not be required to provide invoice information for
wrecker service other than the starting time, stopping time, with
the appropriate rate as filed in each individual tariff and the
name, trade name, address and telephone number of the wrecker
service; and
(5) May not be held responsible for additional charges caused by third parties who call for wrecker equipment larger or smaller
than necessary to complete a particular service.
(c) Notwithstanding the exceptions that apply to wrecker
services in subsection (b) of this section, wrecker services ,
their vehicles and their operators are subject to the safety rules
promulgated by the commission and the vehicles that are exempted by
subsection (b) of this section and are also operated by common
carriers by motor vehicle or contract carriers by motor vehicle.
NOTE: The purpose of this bill is to provide wrecker services
certain exemptions from regulation by the Public Service
Commission.
Strike-throughs indicate language that would be stricken from
the present law, and underscoring indicates new language that would
be added.