Memorandum

City of Lawrence

Legal Services

TO:	David L. Corliss, Assistant City Manager & Director of Legal Services
FROM:	Scott J. Miller, Staff Attorney
Date:	November 17, 2005
RE:	Overweight Truck and Commercial Vehicle Safety Regulations Ordinances

At the request of the Lawrence Police Department traffic unit, the Legal Department has prepared two ordinances that would locally adopt the State of Kansas truck weight requirements and certain federal regulations involving commercial vehicle safety. This would allow violations of these provisions to be prosecuted through the City of Lawrence Municipal Court. Staff is providing a status report on the development of these ordinances.

Overweight / Oversize Trucks

Many cities, including Lenexa, Overland Park, Topeka, Salina, Olathe, Wichita and Bonner Springs, have adopted local ordinances that essentially reflect the provisions of K.S.A. 8-1901 et. seq., the Uniform Act Regulating Traffic; Size, Weight and Load of Vehicles. In addition to concerns regarding the danger that overweight and oversized vehicles may pose to the users of the City’s roadways, research by Tammy Bennett of the City’s Public Works Department demonstrates the impact that overweight trucks have on pavement management. Ms. Bennett’s memorandum containing her preliminary research findings is attached for your reference. Her research indicates that one fully loaded truck or similar heavy vehicle does the same pavement damage as several thousand cars, and that pavement wear increases at approximately the fourth power of increases in axle weight. This means that doubling the weight of an axle results in approximately 16 times the pavement stress. Please consult Ms. Bennett’s memorandum for a more complete discussion of the subject.

The proposed draft truck size and weight ordinance adopts the standards and exceptions found in K.S.A. 8-1901 through K.S.A. 8-1914 to the extent that they are able to translate to enforcement on our local level. The prohibitions, exceptions, and fine structure are identical to those found in those Kansas statutes. Therefore, it is unlikely that unfair surprise on the part of heavy vehicle operators will result if the ordinance is adopted. The basic penalty for most violations in the ordinance is a fine not to exceed $500, but overweight truck violations are punished on a sliding scale found in the fine schedule in K.S.A. 8-2118. This scale caps at $0.10 per pound overweight for vehicles 7500 pounds or more above the maximum weight limits, and is found in section 17-902 of the draft ordinance. For ease of reference, a table of comparative sections is included in Appendix A, below.

Certain considerations had to be addressed to fit the statutes into the form of a City ordinance. First, Section 17-901 was included to adopt the definitions used in the Standard Traffic Ordinance for this Article. These definitions are substantially similar to those found in an earlier part of the Uniform Act Regulating Traffic. Second, the provisions of K.S.A. 8-1906 and 8-1907 are not included in the ordinance because they are already in effect within the City as Sections 179 and 180 of the Standard Traffic Ordinance. Third, certain portions of the statutes are directed specifically at the Kansas Secretary of Transportation or at conditions that do not exist within the City of Lawrence and these provisions were excluded as they would have no effect. Fourth, portions of K.S.A. 8-142 that are not adopted by the Standard Traffic Ordinance are included in this ordinance. These provisions involve vehicle registrations and gross vehicle weights, and make it illegal to operate a truck in a variety of situations where that truck would be improperly registered.

Some of the provisions that are included, proposed sections 17-910 and 17-911 of the ordinance, establish a permit system for oversize or overweight vehicles to be operated within the City of Lawrence. Inclusion of these sections is discretionary and not necessary to the effective enforcement of the remainder of the ordinance, but does give the City an extra element of control over vehicles that could otherwise operate solely under a permit by the Secretary of Transportation, including the ability to require the posting of security or an undertaking to compensate for any damage done to the roadway or road structure, to specify a route of travel, or to deny the request completely. Even if such a permit system is adopted, the permit requirements would not apply to the interstate, state highways, or any street that is a designated connecting link in the state highway system. In the ordinance as drafted, permit fees are set at the same amount as those established in the Kansas Statute. They are relatively nominal, with a $5 fee for a single trip permit. The ordinance is written so that the permits would be issued by the City Manager or another employee of the City of Lawrence to whom the City Manager delegates the duty.

Commercial Vehicle Safety Regulations

The United States Department of Transportation has enacted a wide variety of regulations under its delegated authority in an attempt to keep the operation of commercial motor vehicles reasonably safe. These rules, found in Title 49 of the Code of Federal Regulations, include provisions that set forth the training and qualifications needed to be licensed as a commercial vehicle operator, the disqualification of drivers and equipment that constitutes an immediate safety hazard, special rules of operation that apply to commercial motor vehicles, safety related equipment requirements for these vehicles, and inspection and records requirements. The State of Kansas has adopted the bulk of these rules through its own administrative regulations, K.A.R. 82-4-3, as authorized by K.S.A. 66-1,112 and K.S.A. 66-1,129. Violation of those regulations is a misdemeanor offense.

Some members of the Lawrence Police Department assigned to the traffic unit are Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance inspectors. The Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance (C.V.S.A.) is a not-for-profit organization established to prevent motor vehicle accidents and incidents. It is an association that includes federal, state, provincial and territorial officials responsible for the enforcement of motor carrier safety laws, and includes all 50 states of the United States and its possessions, all Canadian provinces and territories and the country of Mexico. In addition there are hundreds of associate members from the private sector including motor carriers and equipment manufacturers. Our C.V.S.A. certified officers currently perform many compliance inspections of motor vehicles within the City of Lawrence annually. Currently, when they find violations their remedy is to pursue administrative violations against the offenders.

These officers have asked me to draft an ordinance making violations of the safety regulations punishable as public offenses within the City of Lawrence. A draft of such an ordinance is attached for your review. The draft ordinance incorporates exceptions to the Federal regulations found in the Kansas statutes, and adopts by reference a private publication of those rules in a manner similar to the adoption of the Standard Traffic Ordinance.

Beyond the safety benefits that could be generated by local enforcement of these regulations, I am told that there are free or reduced cost training opportunities available for police officers from cities that have adopted such an ordinance. Lawrence would not be the only city in Kansas to have adopted this sort of ordinance. Although the enactment of such an ordinance is not yet commonplace, Olathe and Lenexa have passed similar ordinances.

Staff will seek comments from potentially interested parties prior to submitting these matters to the Traffic Safety Commission. If you have any questions about these ordinances, please feel free to let me know.

Appendix A

Table of Comparative Sections

Ordinance Section	Kansas Statute
17-901	N/A -- This section incorporates definitions from the Standard Traffic Ordinance
17-902	8-1901
17-903	8-1902
17-904	8-1903
17-905	8-1904
17-906	8-1905
17-907	8-1908
17-908	8-1909
17-909	8-1910
17-910	8-1909a
17-911	8-142 (partial)
17-912	N/A – This section clarifies the relationship between this ordinance and the City’s truck route ordinances.
17-913