Posted By Paul Leadbetter Emma If people have a peripatetic role (sales rep, maintenance engineer, etc.) then driving is part of the job and driving time should be included in the working day. If, however, employees choose to live a long way from a fixed workplace, then that is their problem. Don't forget that HSE has started taking action on stress at work. Long driving hours in addition to a normal day's work would be stressful to many people (at least if done on a regular basis). Paul

Posted By Nicholas Williams Hi Emma The problem appears to be whether the journey from home is to the regular place of work i.e. the head office or to another site. The lead case is Smith v Stages [1989] AC 928,[1989] 1 All ER 833, HL A and B were employed as power station laggers. Most of their work was based in the Midlands but on this occasion they were asked by their employer to work at a power station in Wales. It was agreed that they would be paid whilst travelling to and from the job. On the way back from Wales whilst travelling in B's car they had an accident. A the passenger was injured due to the negligence of B the driver. Held: at the time of the accident they were "on duty" and therefore the employer was liable for B's negligence. The distinction between being on and off duty is an important one. In most instances the drive to and from work will be outside the course of employment i.e. off duty. As with all things though it should be dealt with on a case by case basis and exactly what the employers risk assessments says.

Posted By David Brede Dave, Potentially the drive to work is the riskiest thing that an employee may do. Some 3600 people are killed on Britains roads every year so are you doing the right thing in asking them to drive, especially at night and/or after a long shift? At some stage is it not better to get the workforce to lodge close to site or use public transport if available, or indeed at what point should you recruit a local person or relocate an employee near to work if they are to be based there for a long time? David

Posted By Dave Wilson If and 'employee' is 'at work' then a where there is 'A SUBSTANTIAL RISK TO HEALTH' a RA must be undertaken and 'THE SUBSTANTIAL FINDINGS' have to be recorded. Nothing more or less Not at work, don't care & don't bother unless you have to wash your own asbestos overalls!!!! If an employer is expecting a person (Contractor)to travel a couple of hours to work then that risk is outsourced to the contractor, however if you are that worried then have a SLA where the contractor has to hire locally sourced labour to mitigate this risk (which is not yours anyway), watch your costs rise and you will not be in business. Think of the millions of people on the roads daily travelling to/from work and the actual amount of accidents and the actual amount of subsequent injuries = Risk. Not very big is it! I'll drive thanks and its my choice not my employer.

Posted By Steve Wood The subject was well covered in the recent IOSH "Driving Safely Forward" seminar - where it was pointed out that any time where the employee was at the disposal of the company (including "on-call" time) was considered to be working time. And why else is he driving to Glasgow, if it's not for the company? We have teams working in sites all around the country from bases in Yorkshire. They may have a day's work or a week's work at a particular location, or a week's work at various locations. As we pay them for travel to site (but not from home to our base) this time is taken into consideration when we look at the "travel or stay away" options. They are under general instructions to stay away if travelling time will be more than (approx) 2hrs (we pay subsistence). Exceptions are exactly that, in certain circumstances, and usually in conditions where driving can be shared. This then prevents us having a situation where the "injured person" has only "worked" 48hrs, say, but has then been driving a 4hr round trip to get to site each day and has actually been engaged in company business for 68hrs. The "stay-away" instruction also saves petrol/wear-and-tear on vehicles and is therefore Environmentally friendly! "Unmeasured working time" is not included (gets the Directors off the hook perhaps?!)but not paying the guys for travel might not work when the accident investigation gets underway! I can't see how we could NOT consider travel to site as working time (nor do we want to).