Legal Question in Traffic Law in Wisconsin

Re: Fault regarding an accident with an unlicensed/uninsured motorist

The WI rules of the road require a driver who is coming over a hillcrest or passing any other obstruction to reduce his or her speed and take other appropriate precautions to avoid possibly unseen objects on the roadway ahead. In other words, if you hit something coming into a "blind" situation, it is pretty much presumed to be your own fault, since you had the duty to proceed with extreme caution. Whether or not an adverse driver was licensed is not relevant in the legal inquiry into who was at fault in any accident. Therefore, the jury would normally not even be told this fact during the liability trial. On the other hand, drivers stopped in the right of way can also be negligent unless they take precautions to warn oncoming drivers, such as puting out road flares, warning lights, etc. Likewise, drivers who stop in traffic for no good reason with traffic behind them (such as a person trying to communicate unhappyness due to being tailgated) are also at fault. Your situation seems to be somewhere between these extremes and therefor will result in a comparitive negligence spit if the case litigated. This means that total 100% of potential fault would be somehow divided between the two drivers by the jury. The adverse driver's punishment for driving without a license would generally be handled by the criminal justice system rather than in civil litigation. His being unlicensed would therefore probably not assist you in achieving your goal of attributing liability to him. Good luck!