Once the law is effective, drivers who get stopped by police and don’t have a proof-of-insurance card or letter with them will be subject to  a rather stiff $200 fine. 

The car-insurance requirement is the last step in an overhaul in state car insurance laws that was part of Gov. Jim Doyle’s budget last year, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Proponents of the auto-insurance overhaul argue that drivers should have adequate liability insurance to pay for the damage they do to vehicles and other drivers.

Those who opposed the changes in the law maintained that the regulations were good as they were, since roughly 85 percent of Wisconsin drivers right now are purchasing liability coverge voluntarily.   

The law’s critics had also complained that low-income residents who don’t have the money to buy car insurance or pay the fines could lose their driver’s license — and as a result lose their jobs, as well.