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in each state to use by privately owned and controlled motor vehicles of widely different character as respects weight, size, and equipment. The width, grades, curves, weight-bearing capacity, surfacing and overhead obstructions of the highways differ widely in the forty-eight different states and in different sections of each state. There are like variations with respect to congestion of traffic. State regulation, developed over a period of years, has been directed to the safe and convenient use of the highways and their conservation with reference to varying local needs and conditions.

Assumption of national control involved problems of peculiar difficulty and delicacy. Apart from regulations of interstate motor traffic having commercial aims and involving routes, schedules, rates and the like, any regulation on a national scale, whatever its extent, has an intimate and vital relation to the conservation of highways which belong to the states, and to their safe and convenient use by the general public in both interstate and intrastate traffic. Our entire experience with the growth of automobile traffic and its regulation by the states teaches that in any form of non-commercial regulation, safety is a dominant consideration. Motor vehicles are dangerous machines whose operation is attended by serious hazard to persons and property. Hess v. Pawloski, 274 U. S. 352, 356. In 1934, the year before the enactment of the Motor Carrier Act, there were 36,000 reported deaths from motorcar accidents in the United States. Excessive speed, defective appliances,

It is estimated that 85 per cent of all trucks are privately owned and operated, and that over 200,000 separate trucks would be subject to the federal regulation. See Hearings before Senate Committee on Interstate Commerce on S. 2793, 72d Cong., 1st Sess., p. 223; S. Doc. 152, 73d Cong., 2d Sess., p. 28 (1934); Hearings before House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce on H. R. 5262, 74th Cong., 1st Sess. (1935), p. 156, et seq.

* Accident Facts (1936) published by National Safety Counsel, Inc.

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negligent driving, size, weight and loading of cars in conjunction with local conditions of traffic and of the highways, contributed in varying degrees to this record of disaster.

It is in the light of this history and background that we must appraise and apply the provisions of the Motor Carrier Act of 1935. The declared policy of the Act, § 202 (a), is to preserve and foster the economic and commercial advantages of an efficient transportation system. The power to regulate, which it confers on the Interstate Commerce Commission, extends in some measure to safety regulations. Section 204 (a) provides:

"It shall be the duty of the Commission-(1) To regulate common carriers by motor vehicle as provided in this part, and to that end the Commission may establish reasonable requirements with respect to continuous and adequate service, transportation of baggage and express, uniform systems of accounts, records, and reports, preservation of records, qualifications and maximum hours of service of employees, and safety of operation and equipment."

Subdivision (2) imposes a like duty upon the Commission to regulate "contract carriers." Subdivision (3) imposes the duty

"To establish for private carriers of property by motor vehicle, if need therefor is found, reasonable requirements to promote safety of operation, and to that end prescribe qualifications and maximum hours of service of employees, and standards of equipment."

Section 225 provides:

"The Commission is hereby authorized to investigate and report on the need for Federal regulation of the sizes and weight of motor vehicles and combinations of motor vehicles and of the qualifications and maximum hours of

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service of employees of all motor carriers and private carriers of property by motor vehicle; . . ."

The words of this section indicate, as its history demonstrates, that it was intended to reserve from the regulatory power of the Commission the regulation of "sizes and weight of motor vehicles." Unlike § 204 (a) (3), which makes it the duty of the Commission "if need therefor is found" to establish reasonable requirements to promote safety of operation and to prescribe standards of equipment for "private carriers of property," § 225 imposes no duty and confers no authority on the Commission to regulate the sizes and weights of motor vehicles. Its authority is limited to investigation and report of the need of such regulation."

6

The bill containing the provisions of §§ 204 and 225 which we have quoted, was prepared by the Federal Coordinator of Transportation and its adoption was recommended in his 1934 report to the Interstate Com

Cf. Coordination of Motor Transportation, 182 I. C. C. 263, 387, Recommendation 11.

7

'On November 8, 1937, the Commission ordered an Investigation "IN THE MATter of RegulaTIONS GOVERNING THE SIZES AND WEIGHT OF MOTOR VEHICLES AND COMBINATION OF MOTOR VEHICLES USED BY COMMON AND CONTRACT CARRIERS ... AND PRIVATE CARRIERS. "1. To enable the Commission to make a report under the provisions of section 225 on the need for Federal regulation of the sizes and weight of motor vehicles and combinations thereof.

...

"2. To enable the Commission to prescribe reasonable requirements under the provisions of section 204 of the act as to the sizes and weight of motor vehicles and combinations therefor insofar as they affect the safety of operation."

The Commission is now engaged in making its investigation and has made no report of its findings or conclusions. Report No. 1, a preliminary study as yet unpublished (April, 1940), made by the Bureau of Motor Carriers, Interstate Commerce Commission, is devoted to an analysis of state limitations of sizes and weights of motor vehicles.

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merce Commission, which transmitted the report and proposed bill to the Senate with its favorable recommendation. Sen. Doc. No. 152, 73rd Cong., 2d Sess. The report made no mention of the scope, purpose or meaning of § 225, other than the statement, p. 49, that it provides for "investigation and report to Congress of the need, if any, for federal regulation of the sizes and weights of motor vehicles." The report referred, p. 32, to the facts that the states regulate extensively the length, width, height and speed of motor vehicles, and their maximum gross weights and require that they "be equipped with a variety of safety appliances"; that these regulations "are designed in part to protect the safety and convenience of the public in its use of the highways and in part to protect the highways from excessive wear and tear," and that the "requirements as to gross weights, lengths, and widths of vehicles are often grounded in State policies with respect to the design of highways," with respect to their weight sustaining capacity and their curves. In testifying at the hearings upon the bill before the Senate Committee on Interstate Commerce, the Coordinator explained the provisions of § 225 by stating:

"with respect to size and weight of vehicles . . . we do not undertake in this bill to cover that situation except to provide for a thorough investigation of it by the Commission with recommendations to Congress because there is involved not only a question of fact as to what the regulation should be, but also as to how far the federal government has power to interfere with the exercise of the police power of the states with respect to the use of their highways. They have the right to protect their highways against unsafe or unreasonable use, but whether or not the federal government can come in and interfere with it I cannot say at this time." Hearings before

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Senate Committee on Interstate Commerce on S. 1629, 74th Cong., 1st Sess., (1935) p. 92.8

Again, page 61, he referred to "sizes and weights" as "an extremely important matter from the standpoint of public safety and convenience." This Court has also had occasion to point out that the sizes and weights of automobiles have an important relation to the safe and convenient use of the highways, which are matters of state control. Sproles v. Binford, 286 U. S. 374; South Carolina Highway Dept. v. Barnwell Bros., supra. It is evident that the purport of § 225 is to reserve "sizes and weight" from the regulatory powers of the Commission, quite as much when related to safety as when related to highway construction, pending investigation and report by the Commission of the need for such regulation, and further consideration of the matter by Congress. Such has been the uniform construction of § 225 by courts having occasion to consider the subject."

8

On page 61 of the Report the Coordinator stated: "But on this question of sizes and weight of motor vehicles, which is an extremely important matter from the standpoint of public safety and convenience, there is not only the question here as to what those sizes and weights ought to be from the standpoint of road construction and road use, but there is also the legal question as to whether the federal government can exercise power over the matter, or whether it is a matter exclusively within the jurisdiction of the states. It was because of doubts not only as to the facts with reference to that matter, but also to the law that provisions were made for this investigation."

The Committee Reports make no comment on § 225. See S. Rept. No. 482, 74th Cong., 1st Sess.; H. Rept. No. 1645, 74th Cong., 1st Sess.

'L. & L. Freight Lines v. Railroad Commission, 17 F. Supp. 13 (1936); Barnwell Bros. v. South Carolina State Highway Dept., 17 F. Supp. 803 (1937); Werner Transportation Co. v. Hughes, 19 F. Supp. 425 (1937); Houston & North Texas Freight Lines v. Phares, 19 F. Supp. 420 (1937); Morrison v. State, 133 Tex. Cr. App. 141; 109 S. W. 2d 205 (1937); Yellow Cab Transit Co. v. Tuck, 115 S. W.

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