§ 17.061.Definitions

Three definitions, and the first is doing more work than its brevity suggests.

"Agent" includes a servant, employee, heir, legal representative, executor, administrator, or guardian.

The last four entries are the point. A nonresident motorist subchapter that reached only living drivers and their employees would fail in exactly the cases that matter most — a fatal collision in which the out-of-state driver also died. Including heirs and personal representatives keeps the machinery working against the estate.

The first two entries do the ordinary work: a nonresident whose servant or employee was driving is reached through this subchapter as though they had been driving themselves.

"Chairman" means the chairman of the Texas Transportation Commission, who is the designated recipient of substituted service under this subchapter — the transportation counterpart of the secretary of state’s role under the general long-arm provisions.

"Motor vehicle" includes a motorcycle, which forecloses an argument that would otherwise have been available and would have excluded a category of collision with a high injury rate.

All three use "includes", a term of enlargement under the Code Construction Act, so none of the lists is closed.

The subchapter these definitions serve is a specialised alternative to the general long-arm statute, aimed at a single recurring problem: the out-of-state driver who causes a collision in Texas and goes home.