Terms Used In Missouri Laws > Chapter 301 - Registration and Licensing of Motor Vehicles

• Affidavit: A written statement of facts confirmed by the oath of the party making it, before a notary or officer having authority to administer oaths.
• All-terrain vehicle: any motorized vehicle manufactured and used exclusively for off-highway use, with an unladen dry weight of one thousand five hundred pounds or less, traveling on three, four or more nonhighway tires, with either:

  (a) A seat designed to be straddled by the operator, and handlebars for steering control, but excluding an electric bicycle. See Missouri Laws 301.010

• Amendment: A proposal to alter the text of a pending bill or other measure by striking out some of it, by inserting new language, or both. Before an amendment becomes part of the measure, thelegislature must agree to it.
• Answer: The formal written statement by a defendant responding to a civil complaint and setting forth the grounds for defense.
• Appeal: A request made after a trial, asking another court (usually the court of appeals) to decide whether the trial was conducted properly. To make such a request is "to appeal" or "to take an appeal." One who appeals is called the appellant.
• Appropriation: The provision of funds, through an annual appropriations act or a permanent law, for federal agencies to make payments out of the Treasury for specified purposes. The formal federal spending process consists of two sequential steps: authorization
• Arrest: Taking physical custody of a person by lawful authority.
• Attachment: A procedure by which a person's property is seized to pay judgments levied by the court.
• Autocycle: a three-wheeled motor vehicle which the drivers and passengers ride in a partially or completely enclosed nonstraddle seating area, that is designed to be controlled with a steering wheel and pedals, and that has met applicable Department of Transportation National Highway Traffic Safety Administration requirements or federal motorcycle safety standards. See Missouri Laws 301.010
• Beneficiary: A person who is entitled to receive the benefits or proceeds of a will, trust, insurance policy, retirement plan, annuity, or other contract. ^{Source: OCC}
• Boat transporter: any vehicle combination capable of carrying cargo on the power unit and designed and used specifically to transport assembled boats and boat hulls. See Missouri Laws 301.010
• Body shop: a business that repairs physical damage on motor vehicles that are not owned by the shop or its officers or employees by mending, straightening, replacing body parts, or painting. See Missouri Laws 301.010
• Bus: a motor vehicle primarily for the transportation of a driver and eight or more passengers but not including shuttle buses. See Missouri Laws 301.010
• Commercial motor vehicle: a motor vehicle designed or regularly used for carrying freight and merchandise, or more than eight passengers but not including vanpools or shuttle buses. See Missouri Laws 301.010
• Common law: The legal system that originated in England and is now in use in the United States. It is based on judicial decisions rather than legislative action.
• Complaint: A written statement by the plaintiff stating the wrongs allegedly committed by the defendant.
• Continuance: Putting off of a hearing ot trial until a later time.
• Contract: A legal written agreement that becomes binding when signed.
• Conviction: A judgement of guilt against a criminal defendant.
• Corporation: A legal entity owned by the holders of shares of stock that have been issued, and that can own, receive, and transfer property, and carry on business in its own name.
• Damages: Money paid by defendants to successful plaintiffs in civil cases to compensate the plaintiffs for their injuries.
• Dealer: any person, firm, corporation, association, agent or subagent engaged in the sale or exchange of new, used or reconstructed motor vehicles or trailers. See Missouri Laws 301.010
• Decedent: A deceased person.
• Deposition: An oral statement made before an officer authorized by law to administer oaths. Such statements are often taken to examine potential witnesses, to obtain discovery, or to be used later in trial.
• director of revenue: the director of the department of revenue. See Missouri Laws 301.010
• Discovery: Lawyers' examination, before trial, of facts and documents in possession of the opponents to help the lawyers prepare for trial.
• Donor: The person who makes a gift.
• Dromedary: a box, deck, or plate mounted behind the cab and forward of the fifth wheel on the frame of the power unit of a truck tractor-semitrailer combination. See Missouri Laws 301.010
• Electric bicycle: a bicycle equipped with fully operable pedals, a saddle or seat for the rider, and an electric motor of less than 750 watts that meets the requirements of one of the following three classes:

  (a) "Class 1 electric bicycle", an electric bicycle equipped with a motor that provides assistance only when the rider is pedaling and that ceases to provide assistance when the bicycle reaches the speed of twenty miles per hour. See Missouri Laws 301.010

• Electronic funds transfer: The transfer of money between accounts by consumer electronic systems-such as automated teller machines (ATMs) and electronic payment of bills-rather than by check or cash. (Wire transfers, checks, drafts, and paper instruments do not fall into this category.) ^{Source: OCC}
• Entitlement: A Federal program or provision of law that requires payments to any person or unit of government that meets the eligibility criteria established by law. Entitlements constitute a binding obligation on the part of the Federal Government, and eligible recipients have legal recourse if the obligation is not fulfilled. Social Security and veterans' compensation and pensions are examples of entitlement programs.
• Equitable: Pertaining to civil suits in "equity" rather than in "law." In English legal history, the courts of "law" could order the payment of damages and could afford no other remedy. See damages. A separate court of "equity" could order someone to do something or to cease to do something. See, e.g., injunction. In American jurisprudence, the federal courts have both legal and equitable power, but the distinction is still an important one. For example, a trial by jury is normally available in "law" cases but not in "equity" cases. ^{Source: U.S. Courts}
• Evidence: Information presented in testimony or in documents that is used to persuade the fact finder (judge or jury) to decide the case for one side or the other.
• Fiscal year: The fiscal year is the accounting period for the government. For the federal government, this begins on October 1 and ends on September 30. The fiscal year is designated by the calendar year in which it ends; for example, fiscal year 2006 begins on October 1, 2005 and ends on September 30, 2006.
• Fleet: any group of ten or more motor vehicles owned by the same owner. See Missouri Laws 301.010
• Fleet vehicle: a motor vehicle which is included as part of a fleet. See Missouri Laws 301.010
• following: when used by way of reference to any section of the statutes, mean the section next preceding or next following that in which the reference is made, unless some other section is expressly designated in the reference. See Missouri Laws 1.020
• Fraud: Intentional deception resulting in injury to another.
• Gross weight: the weight of vehicle and/or vehicle combination without load, plus the weight of any load thereon. See Missouri Laws 301.010
• Guardian: A person legally empowered and charged with the duty of taking care of and managing the property of another person who because of age, intellect, or health, is incapable of managing his (her) own affairs.
• Guardian: if used in a section in a context relating to property rights or obligations, means conservator of the estate as defined in chapter 475. See Missouri Laws 1.020
• Handicap: means a mental or physical impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities, whether the impairment is congenital or acquired by accident, injury, or disease, and where the impairment is verified by medical findings. See Missouri Laws 1.020
• hereafter: means the time after the statute containing it takes effect. See Missouri Laws 1.020
• Highway: any public thoroughfare for vehicles, including state roads, county roads and public streets, avenues, boulevards, parkways or alleys in any municipality. See Missouri Laws 301.010
• Incompetent: if used in a section in a context relating to actual occupational ability without reference to a court adjudication of incompetency, means the actual ability of a person to perform in that occupation. See Missouri Laws 1.020
• Injunction: An order of the court prohibiting (or compelling) the performance of a specific act to prevent irreparable damage or injury.
• Interest rate: The amount paid by a borrower to a lender in exchange for the use of the lender's money for a certain period of time. Interest is paid on loans or on debt instruments, such as notes or bonds, either at regular intervals or as part of a lump sum payment when the issue matures. ^{Source: OCC}
• Joint committee: Committees including membership from both houses of teh legislature. Joint committees are usually established with narrow jurisdictions and normally lack authority to report legislation.
• Junk vehicle: a vehicle which:

  (a) Is incapable of operation or use upon the highways and has no resale value except as a source of parts or scrap. See Missouri Laws 301.010

• Jurisdiction: (1) The legal authority of a court to hear and decide a case. Concurrent jurisdiction exists when two courts have simultaneous responsibility for the same case. (2) The geographic area over which the court has authority to decide cases.
• Kit vehicle: a motor vehicle assembled by a person other than a generally recognized manufacturer of motor vehicles by the use of a glider kit or replica purchased from an authorized manufacturer and accompanied by a manufacturer's statement of origin. See Missouri Laws 301.010
• Lease: A contract transferring the use of property or occupancy of land, space, structures, or equipment in consideration of a payment (e.g., rent). ^{Source: OCC}
• Legislative session: That part of a chamber's daily session in which it considers legislative business (bills, resolutions, and actions related thereto).
• Liabilities: The aggregate of all debts and other legal obligations of a particular person or legal entity.
• Lien: A claim against real or personal property in satisfaction of a debt.
• Local commercial motor vehicle: a commercial motor vehicle whose operations are confined to a municipality and that area extending not more than fifty miles therefrom, or a commercial motor vehicle whose property-carrying operations are confined solely to the transportation of property owned by any person who is the owner or operator of such vehicle to or from a farm owned by such person or under the person's control by virtue of a landlord and tenant lease. See Missouri Laws 301.010
• Local log truck: a commercial motor vehicle which is registered pursuant to this chapter to operate as a motor vehicle on the public highways of this state. See Missouri Laws 301.010
• Local log truck tractor: a commercial motor vehicle which is registered under this chapter to operate as a motor vehicle on the public highways of this state. See Missouri Laws 301.010
• Log truck: a vehicle which is not a local log truck or local log truck tractor and is used exclusively to transport harvested forest products to and from forested sites which is registered pursuant to this chapter to operate as a motor vehicle on the public highways of this state for the transportation of harvested forest products. See Missouri Laws 301.010
• Major component parts: the rear clip, cowl, frame, body, cab, front-end assembly, and front clip, as those terms are defined by the director of revenue pursuant to rules and regulations or by illustrations. See Missouri Laws 301.010
• Manufacturer: any person, firm, corporation or association engaged in the business of manufacturing or assembling motor vehicles, trailers or vessels for sale. See Missouri Laws 301.010
• Month: means a calendar month, and "year" means a calendar year unless otherwise expressed, and is equivalent to the words year of our Lord. See Missouri Laws 1.020
• Mortgagor: The person who pledges property to a creditor as collateral for a loan and who receives the money.
• Motor change vehicle: a vehicle manufactured prior to August, 1957, which receives a new, rebuilt or used engine, and which used the number stamped on the original engine as the vehicle identification number. See Missouri Laws 301.010
• Motor vehicle: any self-propelled vehicle not operated exclusively upon tracks, except farm tractors and electric bicycles. See Missouri Laws 301.010
• Motor vehicle primarily for business use: any vehicle other than a recreational motor vehicle, motorcycle, motortricycle, or any commercial motor vehicle licensed for over twelve thousand pounds:

  (a) Offered for hire or lease. See Missouri Laws 301.010

• Motorcycle: a motor vehicle operated on two wheels. See Missouri Laws 301.010
• Motortricycle: a motor vehicle upon which the operator straddles or sits astride that is designed to be controlled by handle bars and is operated on three wheels, including a motorcycle while operated with any conveyance, temporary or otherwise, requiring the use of a third wheel, but excluding an electric bicycle. See Missouri Laws 301.010
• Municipality: any city, town or village, whether incorporated or not. See Missouri Laws 301.010
• Nolo contendere: No contest-has the same effect as a plea of guilty, as far as the criminal sentence is concerned, but may not be considered as an admission of guilt for any other purpose.
• Nonresident: a resident of a state or country other than the state of Missouri. See Missouri Laws 301.010
• Oath: A promise to tell the truth.
• Obligation: An order placed, contract awarded, service received, or similar transaction during a given period that will require payments during the same or a future period.
• Operator: any person who operates or drives a motor vehicle. See Missouri Laws 301.010
• Oversight: Committee review of the activities of a Federal agency or program.
• Owner: any person, firm, corporation or association, who holds the legal title to a vehicle or who has executed a buyer's order or retail installment sales contract with a motor vehicle dealer licensed under sections 301. See Missouri Laws 301.010
• Partnership: A voluntary contract between two or more persons to pool some or all of their assets into a business, with the agreement that there will be a proportional sharing of profits and losses.
• person: may extend and be applied to bodies politic and corporate, and to partnerships and other unincorporated associations. See Missouri Laws 1.020
• Personal property: All property that is not real property.
• Personal property: includes money, goods, chattels, things in action and evidences of debt. See Missouri Laws 1.020
• Place of residence: means the place where the family of any person permanently resides in this state, and the place where any person having no family generally lodges. See Missouri Laws 1.020
• Plea: In a criminal case, the defendant's statement pleading "guilty" or "not guilty" in answer to the charges, a declaration made in open court.
• Power of attorney: A written instrument which authorizes one person to act as another's agent or attorney. The power of attorney may be for a definite, specific act, or it may be general in nature. The terms of the written power of attorney may specify when it will expire. If not, the power of attorney usually expires when the person granting it dies. ^{Source: OCC}
• Precedent: A court decision in an earlier case with facts and law similar to a dispute currently before a court. Precedent will ordinarily govern the decision of a later similar case, unless a party can show that it was wrongly decided or that it differed in some significant way.
• Probable cause: A reasonable ground for belief that the offender violated a specific law.
• Probate: Proving a will
• Probation: A sentencing alternative to imprisonment in which the court releases convicted defendants under supervision as long as certain conditions are observed.
• Property: includes real and personal property. See Missouri Laws 1.020
• Prosecute: To charge someone with a crime. A prosecutor tries a criminal case on behalf of the government.
• Public garage: a place of business where motor vehicles are housed, stored, repaired, reconstructed or repainted for persons other than the owners or operators of such place of business. See Missouri Laws 301.010
• Real property: Land, and all immovable fixtures erected on, growing on, or affixed to the land.
• Rebuilder: a business that repairs or rebuilds motor vehicles owned by the rebuilder, but does not include certificated common or contract carriers of persons or property. See Missouri Laws 301.010
• Reconstructed motor vehicle: a vehicle that is altered from its original construction by the addition or substitution of two or more new or used major component parts, excluding motor vehicles made from all new parts, and new multistage manufactured vehicles. See Missouri Laws 301.010
• Recreational motor vehicle: any motor vehicle designed, constructed or substantially modified so that it may be used and is used for the purposes of temporary housing quarters, including therein sleeping and eating facilities which are either permanently attached to the motor vehicle or attached to a unit which is securely attached to the motor vehicle. See Missouri Laws 301.010
• Remainder: An interest in property that takes effect in the future at a specified time or after the occurrence of some event, such as the death of a life tenant.
• Right of survivorship: The ownership rights that result in the acquisition of title to property by reason of having survived other co-owners.
• Rollback or car carrier: any vehicle specifically designed to transport wrecked, disabled or otherwise inoperable vehicles, when the transportation is directly connected to a wrecker or towing service. See Missouri Laws 301.010
• saddle: is a mechanism that connects the front axle of the towed vehicle to the frame or fifth wheel of the vehicle in front and functions like a fifth wheel kingpin connection. See Missouri Laws 301.010
• Saddlemount combination: a combination of vehicles in which a truck or truck tractor tows one or more trucks or truck tractors, each connected by a saddle to the frame or fifth wheel of the vehicle in front of it. See Missouri Laws 301.010
• Salvage dealer and dismantler: a business that dismantles used motor vehicles for the sale of the parts thereof, and buys and sells used motor vehicle parts and accessories. See Missouri Laws 301.010
• Salvage vehicle: a motor vehicle, semitrailer, or house trailer which:

  (a) Was damaged during a year that is no more than six years after the manufacturer's model year designation for such vehicle to the extent that the total cost of repairs to rebuild or reconstruct the vehicle to its condition immediately before it was damaged for legal operation on the roads or highways exceeds eighty percent of the fair market value of the vehicle immediately preceding the time it was damaged. See Missouri Laws 301.010

• Scrap processor: a business that, through the use of fixed or mobile equipment, flattens, crushes, or otherwise accepts motor vehicles and vehicle parts for processing or transportation to a shredder or scrap metal operator for recycling. See Missouri Laws 301.010
• Settlement: Parties to a lawsuit resolve their difference without having a trial. Settlements often involve the payment of compensation by one party in satisfaction of the other party's claims.
• Special mobile equipment: every self-propelled vehicle not designed or used primarily for the transportation of persons or property and incidentally operated or moved over the highways, including farm equipment, implements of husbandry, road construction or maintenance machinery, ditch-digging apparatus, stone crushers, air compressors, power shovels, cranes, graders, rollers, well-drillers and wood-sawing equipment used for hire, asphalt spreaders, bituminous mixers, bucket loaders, ditchers, leveling graders, finished machines, motor graders, road rollers, scarifiers, earth-moving carryalls, scrapers, drag lines, concrete pump trucks, rock-drilling and earth-moving equipment. See Missouri Laws 301.010
• Specially constructed motor vehicle: a motor vehicle which shall not have been originally constructed under a distinctive name, make, model or type by a manufacturer of motor vehicles. See Missouri Laws 301.010
• State: when applied to any of the United States, includes the District of Columbia and the territories, and the words "United States" includes such district and territories. See Missouri Laws 1.020
• Statute: A law passed by a legislature.
• Stinger-steered combination: a truck tractor-semitrailer wherein the fifth wheel is located on a drop frame located behind and below the rearmost axle of the power unit. See Missouri Laws 301.010
• Subpoena: A command to a witness to appear and give testimony.
• Summons: Another word for subpoena used by the criminal justice system.
• Tandem axle: a group of two or more axles, arranged one behind another, the distance between the extremes of which is more than forty inches and not more than ninety-six inches apart. See Missouri Laws 301.010
• Testimony: Evidence presented orally by witnesses during trials or before grand juries.
• tow truck: any emergency commercial vehicle equipped, designed and used to assist or render aid and transport or tow disabled or wrecked vehicles from a highway, road, street or highway rights-of-way to a point of storage or repair, including towing a replacement vehicle to replace a disabled or wrecked vehicle. See Missouri Laws 301.010
• Towaway trailer transporter combination: a combination of vehicles consisting of a trailer transporter towing unit and two trailers or semitrailers, with a total weight that does not exceed twenty-six thousand pounds. See Missouri Laws 301.010
• Tractor: "truck tractor" or "truck-tractor", a self-propelled motor vehicle designed for drawing other vehicles, but not for the carriage of any load when operating independently. See Missouri Laws 301.010
• Trailer: any vehicle without motive power designed for carrying property or passengers on its own structure and for being drawn by a self-propelled vehicle, except those running exclusively on tracks, including a semitrailer or vehicle of the trailer type so designed and used in conjunction with a self-propelled vehicle that a considerable part of its own weight rests upon and is carried by the towing vehicle. See Missouri Laws 301.010
• Trailer transporter towing unit: a power unit that is not used to carry property when operating in a towaway trailer transporter combination. See Missouri Laws 301.010
• Truck: a motor vehicle designed, used, or maintained for the transportation of property. See Missouri Laws 301.010
• Truck-tractor semitrailer-semitrailer: a combination vehicle in which the two trailing units are connected with a B-train assembly which is a rigid frame extension attached to the rear frame of a first semitrailer which allows for a fifth-wheel connection point for the second semitrailer and has one less articulation point than the conventional A-dolly connected truck-tractor semitrailer-trailer combination. See Missouri Laws 301.010
• Truck-trailer boat transporter combination: a boat transporter combination consisting of a straight truck towing a trailer using typically a ball and socket connection with the trailer axle located substantially at the trailer center of gravity rather than the rear of the trailer but so as to maintain a downward force on the trailer tongue. See Missouri Laws 301.010
• Trustee: A person or institution holding and administering property in trust.
• Uniform Commercial Code: A set of statutes enacted by the various states to provide consistency among the states' commercial laws. It includes negotiable instruments, sales, stock transfers, trust and warehouse receipts, and bills of lading. ^{Source: OCC}
• United States: includes such district and territories. See Missouri Laws 1.020
• Used parts dealer: a business that buys and sells used motor vehicle parts or accessories, but not including a business that sells only new, remanufactured or rebuilt parts. See Missouri Laws 301.010
• Utility vehicle: any motorized vehicle manufactured and used exclusively for off-highway use which is more than fifty inches but no more than eighty inches in width, measured from outside of tire rim to outside of tire rim, with an unladen dry weight of three thousand five hundred pounds or less, traveling on four or six wheels, to be used primarily for landscaping, lawn care, or maintenance purposes. See Missouri Laws 301.010
• Vanpool: any van or other motor vehicle used or maintained by any person, group, firm, corporation, association, city, county or state agency, or any member thereof, for the transportation of not less than eight nor more than forty-eight employees, per motor vehicle, to and from their place of employment. See Missouri Laws 301.010
• Vehicle: any mechanical device on wheels, designed primarily for use, or used, on highways, except motorized bicycles, electric bicycles, vehicles propelled or drawn by horses or human power, or vehicles used exclusively on fixed rails or tracks, or cotton trailers or motorized wheelchairs operated by handicapped persons. See Missouri Laws 301.010
• Wrecker or towing service: the act of transporting, towing or recovering with a wrecker, tow truck, rollback or car carrier any vehicle not owned by the operator of the wrecker, tow truck, rollback or car carrier for which the operator directly or indirectly receives compensation or other personal gain. See Missouri Laws 301.010