Pennsylvania | Criminal Law
Legal Question
Motor Vehicle Code Violation
My pickup truck has a ''payload'' capacity (combined weight of passengers, luggage & cargo)of 1315 pounds. I put a 1/2 ton of stone (1000 lbs) in the bed of the truck last weekend and left the home center for home. A Tredyffrin Township cop stopped me for ''obviously being grossly overweight'' and made me follow him to PD HQ, where the ''weighmaster'' weighed the truck and told me the weight on my rear axle exceeded the rated capacity of that axle (2800 pounds) by 692 pounds. I was issued a $300 fine for violation of Sectin 4943 of the MV Code.
I'm not a contractor who hauls stuff for a living. I believed my truck was operating within my payload capacity and had no reason to believe I had too much weight in the truck, let alone on my rear axle. IN any event, there's no way I could have weighed the truck to find out.
I have appealed the citation. Do I have any valid defense? Can I claim that the statute is unfair because no ordinary citizen can reasonably comply with the statute?
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Read More Answered By: Charles A. Pascal, Jr. |
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