344.01 Words and phrases defined.

(1) Words and phrases defined in ss. 340.01 and 343.01 are used in the same sense in this chapter unless a different definition is specifically provided.

(2) In this chapter the following words and phrases have the designated meanings:

(a) “Judgment" means a judgment for damages rendered by a court of competent jurisdiction of any state or of the United States upon a cause of action arising out of the ownership, maintenance or use of any motor vehicle, including damages for care and for loss of services because of bodily injury to or death of any person and damages because of injury to or destruction of property and the consequent loss of use thereof, which judgment has become final by expiration without appeal of the time within which an appeal might have been taken or by final affirmation on appeal. “Judgment" also includes a judgment rendered by a court of competent jurisdiction upon a cause of action on an agreement of settlement for damages of the type specified in this paragraph, which judgment has become final within the meaning of this paragraph.

(b) “Motor vehicle" means a self-propelled vehicle and also includes trailers and semitrailers designed for use with such vehicles, except that “motor vehicle" does not include farm tractors, well drillers, road machinery or snowmobiles.

(c) “Operator" means a person who is in actual or constructive physical control of a motor vehicle. It includes a person who has parked a motor vehicle. It includes the driver of a vehicle being pushed or towed and, in case there is no person actually doing the driving, the person who is doing the pushing or towing.

(cm) Notwithstanding s. 340.01 (42), “owner" means, with respect to a vehicle that is registered, or is required to be registered, by a lessee of the vehicle under ch. 341, the lessee of the vehicle.

(d) “Proof of financial responsibility" or “proof of financial responsibility for the future" means proof of ability to respond in damages for liability on account of accidents occurring subsequent to the effective date of such proof, arising out of the maintenance or use of a motor vehicle in the amount of $25,000 because of bodily injury to or death of one person in any one accident and, subject to that limit for one person, in the amount of $50,000 because of bodily injury to or death of 2 or more persons in any one accident and in the amount of $10,000 because of injury to or destruction of property of others in any one accident.

(e) “Registration" means, in the case of a person whose vehicle is registered under ch. 341, the registration so issued; in the case of a person whose vehicle is not so registered, it means the privilege to register a vehicle in Wisconsin and the reciprocal privilege granted a nonresident to operate in Wisconsin a vehicle not registered in Wisconsin.

(f) “State" means any state, territory or possession of the United States, the District of Columbia, or any province of the Dominion of Canada.

(g) “Vehicle" means every device in, upon, or by which any person or property is or may be transported or drawn upon a highway, except vehicles used exclusively upon stationary rails or tracks and except electric scooters, electric personal assistive mobility devices, and personal delivery devices.

History: 1971 c. 277; 1973 c. 90; 1977 c. 293; 1981 c. 284; 1985 a. 187; Sup. Ct. Order, 146 Wis. 2d xiii (1988); 1997 a. 27; 2001 a. 90; 2009 a. 28; 2011 a. 14; 2017 a. 13; 2019 a. 11.