Michigan bills would trim truck fine, reduce gridlock

While the majority of statehouses throughout the country have gone dark with lawmakers at home until the first of the year, a handful of states continue to meet. In Michigan, bills that are under consideration would trim bond amounts for truck weight violations and ease gridlock caused by certain fender-benders.

One bill is intended to lessen the potential blow on the pocketbooks of truck owners or drivers for truck weight violations.

Michigan law mandates that for vehicles loaded and driven or moved on highways when overweight the owner or driver must pay a fine based on the weight of the excess load and its distribution. If the person doesn’t immediately pay the fine or post bond in an amount double the fine, the vehicle must be impounded.

The House Transportation Committee has advanced a bill to the full House that would eliminate the requirement to double bond amounts. Instead, bonds posted for overweight vehicles would be for the amount of the fines.

Bill supporters say there is no reason for the bond to be double the amount of the actual fine. They say it places an unreasonable burden on drivers or owners while they contest violations because they never will owe more than the amount of the fine.

Sponsored by Sen. Alan Sanborn, R-Richmond, the bill – SB433 – also establishes standards for truck weighing scales.

If approved on the House floor, the bill would move to Gov. Jennifer Granholm’s desk. The Senate has already approved it by unanimous consent.

Another bill on the move would require moving drivable wrecked vehicles off the road.

Awaiting consideration on the House floor, the measure calls for mandating that drivers – or licensed passengers – remove their vehicles from traffic lanes as long as the vehicles are still drivable and no serious injuries were suffered. Failure to move vehicles would result in $105 fines.

Advocates for the requirement – HB5140 – say that studies have shown that more than 20 percent of wrecks are secondary wrecks that occur because of drivers reacting to an existing accident scene or because of a backup situation.


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Body identified more than a year after found in Lake Michigan

Years after police suspended a search for her son, Jeanette Scaffidi finally knows what happened after his boat capsized near the Holland pier.


Police on Wednesday identified a body that washed up on a Grand Haven Township beach in July 2008 as Hartland, Wis., resident Michael Scaffidi.


“We thought it was all over, and now it’s not all over. It’s rehashing everything all over again in our minds,” Jeanette Scaffidi said during a telephone interview Wednesday from her home in Wisconsin.


Scaffidi was reported missing July 9, 2005, after a boating crash on Lake Michigan about two miles southwest of Holland State Park.


Four passengers, including Scaffidi, were ejected from the 42-foot Outerlimits GTX power boat. Another boater, 20-year-old John Desousa Jr. of Bristol, R.I., was killed. Two other passengers were rescued.

Body disappeared


Police said at the time that Scaffidi’s body was thrown from the boat. It could not be located despite extensive searches by police, and later, by the victim’s family that hired a private search firm in attempts to find the body.


The boaters were participating in a charity event called Smoke on the Water Poker Run, in which about 100 boats made stops along the lake to collect cards for a poker hand. The event was based in Grand Haven and followed a 141-mile course with stops in South Haven, Holland, Muskegon and White Lake.


More than three years later, on July 15, 2008, a beach walker discovered human remains washed up along a Lake Michigan beach in Grand Haven Township, about 15 miles north of the accident scene. Police sent samples of the remains to a forensic laboratory at the University of North Texas at Ft. Worth, where the body was identified as Michael Scaffidi.


Police said the identification process required extensive DNA analysis, which included taking DNA samples from Michael Scaffidi’s identical twin brother, Mark.
The process of culturing and growing samples based on decomposing remains and DNA taken from a sibling can take several months.


After discovering the remains in July 2008, the sheriff’s office forwarded the findings to the Texas lab within a month, Lt. Mark Bennett said. Then, they waited for the lab to confirm a match.


“I don’t think it’s terribly unusual, time-frame wise,” Bennett said. “And these remains were in the lake for almost exactly three years.”


Jeanette Scaffidi said she learned late last week that the remains were her son’s.


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