## Facts

- New York City adopted a traffic regulation prohibiting operation of “advertising vehicles” on city streets.
- The regulation exempted vehicles displaying business notices or advertisements for the vehicle owner’s own products, so long as the vehicle was not used mainly for advertising.
- Railway Express Agency, Inc. operated roughly 1,900 trucks in New York City as part of a nationwide express business.
- Railway Express sold exterior truck space for paid advertisements largely unrelated to its own business.
- The City justified the regulation as a traffic-safety measure to reduce distractions to drivers and pedestrians.
- Railway Express was convicted in a New York magistrate’s court for violating the regulation; intermediate state review sustained the conviction, and the New York Court of Appeals affirmed.

## Issues

1. Whether the regulation violated the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause because it lacked a reasonable relation to traffic safety.
2. Whether the regulation violated the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause by exempting owner-related advertising while prohibiting other vehicle advertising.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court affirmed the state-court judgment and upheld the conviction.
- The Court held the regulation did not violate substantive due process because it bore a reasonable relation to the City’s traffic-safety objective.
- The Court held the classification did not deny equal protection under rational basis review, even though the regulation was underinclusive.
- Justice Jackson concurred, emphasizing that general application of legal principles is a practical safeguard against arbitrary government.
- Justice Rutledge concurred in the result while expressing doubt about the equal protection analysis.

## Legal Principles

- Under deferential due process review of economic and social regulations, a court does not assess the wisdom of a traffic regulation if it has a reasonable relation to a legitimate public purpose.
- Under rational basis equal protection review, a government may address a problem incrementally and is not required to regulate every source of a perceived harm at once.
- A classification survives equal protection review if it is not wholly arbitrary and has a plausible connection to the regulation’s objective, even if it leaves similar conduct unregulated.
- A distinction between advertising for hire and advertising in the owner’s self-interest may be treated as a “real difference” sufficient to support differential treatment when tied to a legitimate purpose such as traffic safety.

## Conclusion

The Court upheld New York City’s restriction on advertising vehicles, concluding that reducing traffic distractions was a legitimate objective and that exempting owner-related notices while prohibiting other advertising was a permissible, underinclusive classification consistent with due process and equal protection.


Railway Express Agency, Inc. v. New York, 336 U.S. 106 (1949)