Title: State v. Sands
Citation: 280 N.W.2d 370
Docket Number: 62452
State: Iowa
Issuer: Iowa Supreme Court
Date: June 27, 1979

280 N.W.2d 370 (1979) STATE of Iowa, Appellee, v. Keith I. SANDS, Appellant. No. 62452. Supreme Court of Iowa. June 27, 1979. R. Fred Dumbaugh, Cedar Rapids, for appellant. Thomas J. Miller, Atty. Gen., J. Susan Allender, Asst. Atty. Gen., Eugene Kopecky, County Atty., and William L. Thomas, Asst. County Atty., for appellee. Considered by REYNOLDSON, C. J., and UHLENHOPP, McCORMICK, McGIVERIN and LARSON, JJ. McCORMICK, Justice. The question here is whether a statutory gross weight tolerance for motor vehicle registration purposes also constitutes a tolerance for axle gross weights. The trial court held it does not. We affirm. Defendant Keith I. Sands owned a truck with a registered weight of 50,000 pounds. On April 19, 1978, he was arrested for having an overloaded truck while hauling manure from a packing plant to a landfill. The gross weight of the vehicle so loaded was 62,500 pounds, twenty-five percent over its registered weight. The arresting officer issued two citations for alleged violations of section 321.463, The Code 1977. One was for the overload on tandem axles two and three of 18,350 pounds and the other was for the overload on the gross wheelbase of 13,581 pounds. The conviction challenged here is upon the first charge. The record does not show the disposition of the second. *371 Section 321.463 includes a table which specifies the maximum load which may be carried on any group of axles based upon the distance between them. These load limitations are unaffected by the gross weight for which a vehicle is registered. Axles two and three on defendant's truck were four feet two inches apart and the maximum allowable load upon them, according to the table, was 32,000 pounds. The statute provides for a tolerance of eight percent above the maximum weight on an axle group. It also specifies penalties for each one hundred pounds of overload based upon a graduated schedule. It adds: The purpose of these overload regulations is to promote public safety and preserve highways. See State v. Wehde, 258 N.W.2d 347, 352 (Iowa 1977); State v. Pyle, 226 Or. 485, 360 P.2d 626 (1961). Defendant contends the provisions of section 321.463 are overridden by section 321.466 which provided a registered weight tolerance of twenty-five percent for vehicles carrying soil fertilizers and delineated farm products. Section 321.466 lists various circumstances under which a vehicle may be registered for increased gross weights by payment of a higher registration fee. Its tolerance provision is as follows: Defendant's vehicle was within the twenty-five percent tolerance. A penalty is provided in section 321.466 for operating a vehicle on a highway with a gross weight exceeding that for which it is registered. It is obvious that the tolerance in section 321.466 affects the applicability of its penalty to overloaded vehicles carrying soil fertilizers including manure. However, section 321.466 concerns operation of vehicles in violation of limitations on registered gross weight, not axle gross weight. Section 321.463, under which defendant was prosecuted, proscribes operating in excess of certain axle gross weights regardless of the registered gross weight. Section 321.463 contains its own tolerance provisions. These Code sections are in pari materia and must be harmonized if possible. Doe v. Ray, 251 N.W.2d 496, 501 (Iowa 1977). We do not believe they are in conflict. The regulations in sections 321.463 and 321.466 are not interdependent. They *372 both establish limitations upon vehicular gross weight, but under different standards. Each provision is complete in itself. Section 321.466 is in relevant part a registration statute pursuant to which fees are exacted based on vehicular weight in various defined circumstances. Its tolerance provision applies to registered weight, not axle weight. In contrast, the overload limitations and tolerances in section 321.463 are not affected by registered weight. No reason exists for believing the tolerance in section 321.466 for registration fee purposes was intended by the legislature to establish a tolerance for axle overload purposes under section 321.463. The Arkansas Supreme Court reached the same conclusion under analogous provisions. See Stuart v. State, 563 S.W.2d 398 (Ark.1978). The trial court was correct in so holding in this case. AFFIRMED.