Does section 453 of the Vehicle Code exempt a publicly owned motor vehicle engaged in work upon the surface of a highway?

Defendant contends that section 453, subdivision (b), of the Vehicle Code, providing certain exemptions of publicly owned motor vehicles 'engaged in work upon the surface of a highway' applies. Here the scoopmobile was engaged in working on a part of the dump and not in work 'upon the surface of a highway.' In Behling v. County of Los Angeles, supra, 139 Cal.App.2d 684, 294 P.2d 534, the accident occurred on a dirt roadway, ungraded and unpaved, in a forest reserve, not open to the public travel and blocked off by means of a chain and lock. The court held that this was not a 'highway' within the meaning of the Vehicle Code. The county road commissioner testified that the terrace where the scoopmobile was working was not a part of the county road system. By no stretch of the imagination can a terrace on a garbage dump be considered a 'highway.'

Third and Fourth Counts. Nuisance.