A hypothetical scenario – An employee decides to make a trip across country in their own vehicle for company business, due to timings or admin failure no one checks to see if they have valid insurance or MOT prior to the journey. Given that these are already legal requirements for regular driving, could the employer be held responsible should an accident occur (is there any recent case studies for this) or does responsibility ultimatly sit with the driver.  

Unlikely that the employer would have any liability (certainly none under Road Traffic Laws) but a tenuous possibility under PUWER (car classed as work equipment? Look at Guidance to the ACoP on page 10. Employer still has duties if people who use their own work equipment but this depends on level of control). I think it is unlikely but as this is hypothetical…

Mmm, yes, while I agree with most of what has been said in general terms, does it apply JL's hypothetical scenario; 'An employee decides to make a trip across country...'? Looks to me like this is a person who is not expected to drive, and who makes their own decision to use their own car. In these circumstances I can't see the employer having very much in the way of a duty of care.

In my previous post we had about 20,000 volunteers. Many of them were expected to drive; we checked their licences and so on. The rest we knew might drive occasionally, but we didn't ask or require them to. We carried out no checks on these drivers. The same applied to our employees. Everyone in employment who has a driving licence and a car might drive on work business; this doesn't necessarily make them work drivers. To be more specific; would you expect to have carried out driver checks on an office administrator who might (might) nip to Tesco (other supermarkets are available) once in a blue moon to get a pint of milk? I wouldn't.

So in JL's case, I think the employer would have had no foreknoweledge of what the employee was going to do, and by the sounds of things had not required them to drive, so no duty of care,

John

Edited by user 17 January 2019 14:11:35(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

In opart I would agree with JWk about the occasional driver popping out for milk not being a work driver. However, a much clearer case might be popping out to do the post and typically its the same person doing it more than once  and the employee not being insured for business use.  The company would readily come under being a user and all that goes with it.  Its deciding what happens if or when it goiues wrong or they get stopped and the fine detail comes into question.  we could add our own little nuance to the OP scenario to push the answer either way 

Hi Chas,

Anybody can be guilty of causing or permitting, but I've not yet heard it being applied to an employer for what is in effect casual, even unauthorised use. If the employer had no knowledge they could not be said to cause or permit,

John

thanks all, I guess in order to be safe employers should have a robustly communicated set of expectations when driving own vehicles for work, I would still be interested to see if this has been tested in the courts.

We are going  through this at the moment.  I think if we are asking people to travel for work then we have some duty of care. Even if it's a s simple policy stating you must have the correct insurance, licence MOT etc if using your own vechile for work. I'm sure the first corporate manslaughter prosecution was driving realted?

Originally Posted by: achrn

Originally Posted by: mikecarr

We are going  through this at the moment.  I think if we are asking people to travel for work then we have some duty of care. Even if it's a s simple policy stating you must have the correct insurance, licence MOT etc if using your own vechile for work. I'm sure the first corporate manslaughter prosecution was driving realted?

I think some duty of care - making staff aware that they are repsonsible for having appropriate insurance etc (i.e. that the company does not provide it) is certainly true.  However, can anyone that's claiming that a company should check driving licences regularly, should verify insurance small print etc. cite any case where a court has held this to be true?  I know the companies that sell driving-licence checks think you should do it frequently, but is tehre any sign that the courts agree?

First corporate manslaughter case was Cotswold Geotechnical, I think - driving was not relevant.

you should do it frequently, but is tehre any sign that the courts agree?

Originally Posted by: AcornsConsult

Originally Posted by: achrn

Originally Posted by: mikecarr

We are going  through this at the moment.  I think if we are asking people to travel for work then we have some duty of care. Even if it's a s simple policy stating you must have the correct insurance, licence MOT etc if using your own vechile for work. I'm sure the first corporate manslaughter prosecution was driving realted?

I know the companies that sell driving-licence checks think you should do it frequently, but is tehre any sign that the courts agree?

Simply making an employee aware of their responsibility is passing the buck and trying to avoid the company responsibility. 

That is begging the question, in the precise technical sense.

You are attempting to prove that the company has a responsibility by starting from the assumption that the company has a responsibility.  If the company doesn't have a responsibility, then it clearly isn't passing the buck since there is no buck to pass, so it fails as a logical argument (whether or not teh responsibility exists).  That is, you can't demonstrate that they have a responsibility by saying that they must have a reponsibility because if they didn't accept the responsibility they would be shirking the reponsibility they have.

So I'm back to asking is there any basis for saying that a company should regularly check insurances other than starting from an assumption that the company should regularly check insurances?

I don't believe that telling an employee that they must only drive their car for business if they have arranged appropriate insurance is "avoiding the issue of how its done" - an employee who has received that instruction and goes on to drive their own car is specifically acting against explicit instructions of the employer.

I agree that it's little different to an employee using a company vehicle that they are not licensed or insured to use - but if the employee has been explicitly and unambiguously instructed not to use that vehicle and does so anyway would the court hold the company liable?  When someone steals my car and goes joy-riding round the town, will I be prosecuted for them driving without insurance?  If they steal a company vehicle will the company be prosecuted?

Edited by user 22 January 2019 13:30:47(UTC)  | Reason: mesed up quoting - tried again