e date specified shall depend
upon public convenience and necessity.[422] To require private contract
carriers for hire to obtain a certificate of convenience and necessity,
which is not granted if the service of common carriers is impaired
thereby, and to fix minimum rates applicable thereto which are not less
than those prescribed for common carriers is valid as a means of
conserving highways;[423] but any attempt to convert private carriers
into common carriers,[424] or to subject them to the burdens and
regulations of common carriers, without expressly declaring them to be
common carriers, is violative of due process.[425] In the absence of
legislation by Congress a State may, in protection of the public safety,
deny an interstate motor carrier the use of an already congested
highway.[426]
In exercising its authority over its highways, on the other hand, a
State is limited not merely to the raising of revenue for maintenance
and reconstruction, or to regulations as to the manner in which vehicles
shall be operated, but may also prevent the wear and hazards due to
excessive size of vehicles and weight of load. Accordingly, a statute
limiting to 7,000 pounds the net load permissible for trucks is not
unreasonable.[427] No less constitutional is a municipal traffic
regulation which forbids the operation in the streets of any
advertising vehicle, excepting vehicles displaying business notices or
advertisements of the products of the owner and not used mainly for
advertising; and such regulation may be validly enforced to prevent an
express company from selling advertising space on the outside of its
trucks. Inasmuch as it is the judgment of local authorities that such
advertising affects public safety by distracting drivers and
pedestrians, courts are unable to hold otherwise in the absence of
evidence refuting that conclusion.[428]
Any appropriate means adopted to insure compliance and care on the part
of licensees and to protect other highway users being consonant with due
process, a State may also provide that one, against whom a judgment is
rendered for negligent operation and who fails to pay it within a
designated time, shall have his license and registration suspended for
three years, unless, in the meantime, the judgment is satisfied or
discharged.[429] By the same token a nonresident owner who loaned his
automobile in another State, by the law of which he was immune from
liability for the borrower's neglige
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