60-1301. Weighing stations; portable scales; purpose; location; effect as evidence of weight determination; reweighing, when required; pickup trucks; exception; Nebraska State Patrol; rules and regulations.

In order to promote public safety, to preserve and protect the state highways and bridges and prevent immoderate and destructive use of the same, and to enforce the motor vehicle registration laws, the Department of Transportation shall have the responsibility to construct, maintain, provide, and contract with the Nebraska State Patrol for the operation of weighing stations and provide the funding for the same. The Nebraska State Patrol shall operate the weighing stations, including portable scales, for the weighing and inspection of buses, motor trucks, truck-tractors, semitrailers, trailers, and towed vehicles. Each of the weighing stations shall be located near, on, or adjacent to a state highway upon real estate owned by the State of Nebraska or upon real estate acquired for that purpose. Weights determined on such weighing stations and portable scales shall be presumed to be accurate and shall be accepted in court as prima facie evidence of a violation of the laws relating to the size, weight, load, and registration of buses, motor trucks, truck-tractors, semitrailers, trailers, and towed vehicles. The owner or driver of a vehicle found to be in violation of such laws by the use of portable scales shall be advised by the officer operating the portable scale that he or she has the right to demand an immediate reweighing at his or her expense at the nearest permanent state-approved scale capable of weighing the vehicle, and if a variance exists between the weights of the permanent and portable scales, then the weights determined on the permanent scale shall prevail. Sections 60-1301 to 60-1309 shall not apply to pickup trucks with a factory-rated capacity of one ton or less, except as may be provided by rules and regulations of the Nebraska State Patrol, or to recreational vehicles as defined in section 71-4603. The Nebraska State Patrol may adopt and promulgate rules and regulations concerning the weighing of pickup trucks with a factory-rated capacity of one ton or less which tow vehicles. Such rules and regulations shall require trucks towing vehicles to comply with sections 60-1301 to 60-1309 when it is necessary to promote the public safety and preserve and protect the state highways and bridges.

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