As used in this title, the term:

(1) "Carrier" means a person who undertakes the transporting of goods or passengers for compensation.

(2) "Certificate" means a certificate of public convenience and necessity issued by the Public Service Commission pursuant to this title.

(3) "Commission" means the Public Service Commission.

(4) "Company" shall include a corporation, a firm, a partnership, an association, or an individual.

(5) "Electric utility" means any retail supplier of electricity whose rates are fixed by the commission.

(6) "For hire" means an activity wherein for compensation a motor vehicle and driver are furnished to a person by another person, acting directly or knowingly and willfully acting with another to provide the combined service of the vehicle and driver, and includes every person acting in concert with, under the control of, or under common control with a motor carrier who shall offer to furnish transportation for compensation.

(6.1) "Gas company" means any person certificated under Article 2 of Chapter 4 of this title to construct or operate any pipeline or distribution system, or any extension thereof, for the transportation, distribution, or sale of natural or manufactured gas.

(7) "Household goods" means any personal effects and property used or to be used in a dwelling when a part of the equipment or supplies of such dwelling; furniture, fixtures, equipment, and property of offices, stores, museums, institutions, hospitals, or other establishments when a part of the stock, equipment, or supplies of such stores, museums, institutions, hospitals, or other establishments; articles including objects of art, displays, exhibits, which, because of their unusual nature or value, require specialized handling and equipment usually employed in moving household goods.

(8) "Motor carrier of property" means a motor common or contract carrier engaged in transporting property, except household goods, in intrastate commerce in this state.

(9) "Motor contract carrier and motor common carrier" means as follows:

(A) "Motor contract carrier" means every person, except common carriers, owning, controlling, operating, or managing any motor propelled vehicle including the lessees or trustees of such persons or receivers appointed by any court used in the business of transporting persons or property for hire over any public highway in this state and not operated exclusively within the corporate limits of any city.

(B) "Motor common carrier" means every person owning, controlling, operating, or managing any motor propelled vehicle, and the lessees, receivers, or trustees of such person, used in the business of transporting for hire of persons or property, or both, otherwise than over permanent rail tracks, on the public highways of Georgia as a common carrier.

(C) Except as otherwise provided in this subparagraph, the terms "motor common carrier" and "motor contract carrier" shall not include:

(i) Motor vehicles engaged solely in transporting school children and teachers to and from public schools and private schools;

(ii) Taxicabs, drays, trucks, buses, and other motor vehicles which operate within the corporate limits of municipalities and are subject to regulation by the governing authorities of such municipalities. This exception shall apply to taxicabs and buses even though such vehicles may, in the prosecution of their regular business, occasionally go beyond the corporate limits of such municipalities, provided that they do not operate to or from fixed termini outside of such limits and to any dray or truck which operates within the corporate limits of a city and is subject to regulation by the governing authority of such city or by the commissioner of motor vehicle safety and which goes beyond the corporate limits only for the purpose of hauling chattels which have been seized under any court process;

(iii) Hotel passenger or baggage motor vehicles when used exclusively for patrons and employees of such hotel;

(iv) Motor vehicles operated not for profit with a capacity of 15 persons or less when they are used exclusively to transport elderly and disabled passengers or employees under a corporate sponsored van pool program, except that a vehicle owned by the driver may be operated for profit when such driver is traveling to and from his or her place of work provided each such vehicle carrying more than nine passengers maintains liability insurance in an amount of not less than $100,000.00 per person and $300,000.00 per accident and $50,000.00 property damage. For the purposes of this division, elderly and disabled passengers are defined as individuals over the age of 60 years or who, by reason of illness, injury, age, congenital malfunction, or other permanent or temporary incapacity or disability, are unable to utilize mass transportation facilities as effectively as persons who are not so affected;

(v) Granite trucks, where transportation from quarry to finishing plant involves not crossing more than two counties;

(vi) RFD carriers and star-route carriers which carry no more than nine passengers along with carriage of the United States mail, provided that such carriers shall not carry passengers on a route along which another motor carrier of passengers has a permit or a certificate to operate;

(vii) Motor trucks of railway companies which perform a pick-up and delivery service in connection with their freight train service, between their freight terminals and points not more than ten miles distant, when either the freight terminal or such points, or both, are outside the limits of an incorporated city;

(viii) Motor vehicles owned and operated exclusively by the United States government or by this state or any subdivision thereof;

(ix) Single source leasing whereby a leasing company whose primary business is leasing vehicles and who operates a fleet of ten or more vehicles provides vehicle equipment and drivers in a single transaction to a private carrier. Such arrangement is presumed to result in private carriage by the shipper if the requirements enumerated below are met and subject only to the commission's transportation safety rules:

(I) The lease must be reduced to writing and a copy maintained on the leased vehicle at all times during the term of the lease;

(II) The period for which the lease applies must be no less than 30 days;

(III) The lease agreement must provide, and the surrounding facts must reflect, that the leased equipment is exclusively committed to the lessee's use for the term of the lease;

(IV) The lease agreement must provide, and the surrounding facts must reflect, that during the term of the lease the lessee accepts, possesses, and exercises exclusive dominion and control over the leased equipment and assumes complete responsibility for the operation of the equipment;

(V) The lessee must maintain public liability insurance and accept responsibility to the public for any injury caused in the course of performing the transportation service conducted by the lessee with the equipment during the term of the lease;

(VI) The lessee shall display appropriate identification on all equipment leased by it showing operation by the lessee during the performance of the transportation;

(VII) The lessee must accept responsibility for, and bear the cost of, compliance with safety regulations during performance by the lessee of any such transportation services; and

(VIII) The lessee must bear the risk of damage to the cargo, subject to any right of action the lessee may have against the lessor for the latter's negligence;

(x) Motor vehicles engaged exclusively in the transportation of agricultural or dairy products, or both, between farm, market, gin, warehouse, or mill, whether such motor vehicle is owned by the owner or producer of such agricultural or dairy products or not, so long as the title remains in the producer. For the purposes of this division, the term "producer" includes a landlord where the relations of landlord and tenant or landlord and cropper are involved. As used in this division, the term "agricultural products" includes fruit, livestock, meats, fertilizer, wood, lumber, cotton, and naval stores; household goods and supplies transported to farms for farm purposes; or other usual farm and dairy supplies, including products of grove or orchard; poultry and eggs; fish and oysters; and timber or logs being hauled by the owner thereof or the owner's agents or employees between forest and mill or primary place of manufacture; provided, however, motor vehicles with a manufacturer's gross weight rated capacity of 44,000 pounds or more engaged solely in the transportation of unmanufactured forest products shall be subject to the Georgia Forest Products Trucking Rules which shall be adopted and promulgated by the commissioner of motor vehicle safety only for application to such vehicles and vehicles defined in subparagraph (A) of paragraph (13) of this Code section; provided, further, that pulpwood trailers and pole trailers with a manufacturer's gross weight rated capacity of 10,001 pounds or more engaged solely in the transportation of unmanufactured forest products shall have two amber side marker reflectors on each side of the trailer chassis between the rear of the tractor cab and the rearmost support for the load. All such reflectors shall be not less than four inches in diameter. Such rules and any amendments thereto adopted by the commissioner of motor vehicle safety shall be subject to legislative review in accordance with the provisions of Code Section 46-2-30, and, for the purposes of such rules and any amendments thereto, the Senate Natural Resources Committee and the House Committee on Natural Resources and Environment shall be the appropriate committees within the meaning of said Code Section 46-2-30. The first such rules adopted by the commissioner of motor vehicle safety shall be effective July 1, 1991;

(xi) Motor vehicles engaged in the transportation of unmanufactured agricultural products, dairy products, poultry and processed poultry, nursery stock, sod grass, potting soil, pine bark nuggets, dry fertilizer, flue-cured tobacco, soybean meal, pine bark, wood chips, shavings, sawdust, or feedstuff for livestock and poultry, including feedstuff ingredients, provided that such vehicles do not haul or transport other commodities on the same vehicle at the same time not exempt by law from the regulations of the commissioner of motor vehicle safety; motor vehicles commonly known as tow trucks or wreckers, designed and exclusively used in the business of towing abandoned, disabled, and wrecked vehicles and replacement vehicles therefor or otherwise rendering assistance to abandoned, disabled, and wrecked vehicles; except that any operator of such a vehicle is required to register the exempt operation with the commissioner of motor vehicle safety, register and identify any of its vehicles, and become subject to the commissioner's liability insurance and vehicle and hazardous materials safety rules;

(xii) Motor vehicles engaged in compensated intercorporate hauling whereby transportation of property is provided by a person who is a member of a corporate family for other members of such corporate family, provided:

(I) The parent corporation notifies the commissioner of motor vehicle safety of its intent or the intent of one of the subsidiaries to provide the transportation;

(II) The notice contains a list of participating subsidiaries and an affidavit that the parent corporation owns directly or indirectly a 100 percent interest in each of the subsidiaries;

(III) A copy of the notice is carried in the cab of all vehicles conducting the transportation; and

(IV) The transportation entity of the corporate family registers the compensated intercorporate hauling operation with the commissioner of motor vehicle safety, registers and identifies any of its vehicles, and becomes subject to the commissioner's liability insurance and motor carrier and hazardous materials transportation rules.

For the purpose of this division, the term "corporate family" means a group of corporations consisting of a parent corporation and all subsidiaries in which the parent corporation owns directly or indirectly a 100 percent interest;

(xiii) Vehicles, except limousines, transporting not more than ten persons for hire, except that any operator of such a vehicle is required to register the exempt operation with the commissioner of motor vehicle safety, register and identify any of its vehicles, and become subject to the commissioner's liability insurance and vehicle safety rules;

(xiv) Any dump truck or transit mixer vehicle used exclusively in the transportation of sand, gravel, crushed stone, fill dirt, borrow pit materials, plant mix road materials, plant mix concrete, or road base materials; except that any operator of such a vehicle is required to register the exempt operation with the commissioner of motor vehicle safety, register and identify any of its vehicles, and become subject to the commissioner's liability insurance and vehicle and hazardous materials safety rules; or

(xv) Ambulances.

(10) "Passenger" means a person who travels in a public conveyance by virtue of a contract, either express or implied, with the carrier as to the payment of the fare or that which is accepted as an equivalent therefor. The prepayment of fare is not necessary to establish the relationship of passenger and carrier; although a carrier may demand prepayment of fare if persons enter his or her vehicle by his or her permission with the intention of being carried; in the absence of such a demand, an obligation to pay fare is implied on the part of the passenger, and the reciprocal obligation of carriage of the carrier arises upon the entry of the passenger.

(11) "Permit" means a registration permit issued by the commissioner of motor vehicle safety authorizing interstate transportation for hire exempt from the jurisdiction of the Interstate Commerce Commission or intrastate transportation for hire exempt from the jurisdiction of the commissioner of motor vehicle safety or intrastate transportation by a motor carrier of property.

(12) "Person" means any individual, partnership, trust, private or public corporation, municipality, county, political subdivision, public authority, cooperative, association, or public or private organization of any character.

(13) "Private carrier" means every person except motor common carriers or motor contract carriers owning, controlling, operating, or managing any motor propelled vehicle, and the lessees or trustees thereof or receivers appointed by any court whatsoever, used in the business of transporting persons or property in private transportation not for hire over any public highway in this state. The term "private carrier" shall not include:

(A) Motor vehicles not for hire engaged solely in the harvesting or transportation of forest products; provided, however, that motor vehicles not for hire with a manufacturer's gross weight rated capacity of 44,000 pounds or more engaged solely in the transportation of unmanufactured forest products shall be subject only to the Georgia Forest Products Trucking Rules provided for in division (9)(C)(x) of this Code section;

(B) Motor vehicles not for hire engaged solely in the transportation of road-building materials;

(C) Motor vehicles not for hire engaged solely in the transportation of unmanufactured agricultural or dairy products between farm, market, gin, warehouse, or mill whether such vehicle is owned by the owner or producer of such agricultural or dairy products or not, so long as the title remains in the producer; or

(D) Except for the motor vehicles excluded under subparagraph (C) of this paragraph, motor vehicles having a manufacturer's gross vehicle weight rating of 10,000 pounds or less; provided, however, that motor vehicles which have a manufacturer's gross vehicle weight rating of 10,000 pounds or less and which are transporting hazardous materials, as the term "hazardous materials" is defined in Title 49 C.F.R., Parts 107, 171-173, and 177-178, shall be included within the meaning of the term "private carrier."

(14) "Public highway" means every public street, road, highway, or thoroughfare of any kind in this state.

(15) "Railroad corporation" or "railroad company" means all corporations, companies, or individuals owning or operating any railroad in this state. This title shall apply to all persons, firms, and companies, and to all associations of persons, whether incorporated or otherwise, that engage in business as common carriers upon any of the lines of railroad in this state, as well as to railroad corporations and railroad companies as defined in this Code section.

(16) "Rate," when used in this title with respect to an electric utility, means any rate, charge, classification, or service of an electric utility or any rule or regulation relating thereto. (17) "Utility" means any person who is subject in any way to the lawful jurisdiction of the commission.

(18) "Vehicle" or "motor vehicle" means any vehicle, machine, tractor, trailer, or semitrailer propelled or drawn by mechanical power and used upon the highways in the transportation of passengers or property, or any combination thereof, determined by the Public Service Commission.