Senate Bill No. 156
(By Senator Barnes)
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         [Introduced February 14, 2013; referred to the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure      .]                               
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A BILL to amend the Code of West Virginia, 1931, as amended, by adding thereto a new section, designated §17C-15-50, relating to prohibiting vehicles equipped with a hitch from being left with hitch tongues inserted in the hitch when the hitch tongue is not in use.
Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
    That the Code of West Virginia, 1931, as amended, be amended by adding thereto a new section, designated §17C-15-50, to read as follows:
ARTICLE 15. EQUIPMENT.
§17C-15-50. Vehicles to remove hitch tongues and related accessories when not in use.
               Any vehicle, equipped with a hitch, designed to accommodate hitching tongues with mounted hitching balls or other hitching tongues connected to luggage carriers, bicycle carriers or the like, shall not be driven or left stationary with a hitching tongue left inserted into the hitch or otherwise attached, when the hitching ball is not in use for towing or the particular device or implement for which the hitching tongue is designed to hold is not in use for the particular purpose for which it is intended.



               NOTE: The purpose of this bill is to prohibit vehicles equipped with a hitch, from being left with hitch tongues inserted in the hitch when the hitch tongue is not in use.

               The section is new; therefore, strike-throughs and underscoring have been omitted.