New driver - can employer force me to use my car if it’s snowing

red_eye

caz_cardiff87 wrote: »

Hi all,

I’ve been scouring the internet but haven’t found much in relation to my question...

OK so yesterday my cousin text me on my lunch break and told me about the weather warnings for wales and i decided IF it was bad i wouldn’t be driving. I work in a hospital and had been put on a remote site which means covering other hospitals (basically you need your car to do the job there).

I called one of my senior colleagues and explained that being a new driver (not been driving 12 months yet!) and never having to deal with snow and ice, i was really nervous and very reluctant to practice my skills in morning traffic but obv would wait and see how bad it got before deciding, offered to find an alternative way of getting there i,e. walk or get a train close to the site.

Anyway, all i got back was ‘well i did it last year, just go slow, you’ll be fine’ etc...this was met with a lengthy discussion on facebook with 3 other colleagues who were all gun-ho about it all absolutely no understanding that
a) despite reading all the tips tricks etc of how to drive in those conditions, ultimately i’ve had 0 practice at it and in my mind, morning traffic and bad roads probably isn’t the best time to ‘have a go’.
b) if i wreck my car i can’t afford a new one (high insurance, recently graduated = living in overdraft and very little chance of getting finance let alone a payment scheme i can afford! If that car goes, i won’t be getting another one for a long time and they’ll have one less member of staff who can cover that site. c) i really don’t think it’s worth the risk, i’m not a nurse / doctor so if police are saying don’t drive, then fair play i say!

c) my tyres are currently at 2mm tread, it’s old, i don’t trust it entirely and seeing newer cars struggling really put me off.

along with some really useless advice e.g. keep a spade in the car and use some old carpet to stick under your wheels if you get stuck.... i have no spade (why would i when i don’t have a garden!?.... and my flat has wooden flooring throughout... so no carpet!)

Fast forward to this morning, heavy snow, roads are caked and i spend 30 minutes watching cars sliding past my flat. A colleague text me saying don’t worry, get there another way so i did, ah relief! Since then, a couple of my colleagues have made a point that they got in from out of town and have spent time posting pics of them behind the wheel driving in stupid conditions.

I just don’t understand this mentality of well if i did it there’s no reason for anyone else not to. Fair enough, if you know how to handle driving in it, go for it but why make other people feel like they have to potentially put themselves in a really risky situation?? I know it’s done now, and to be fair the one colleague i spoke to was more understanding this morning as she had also decided to ditch her car and walk but other’s talk like you let them down, one even said ‘oh i drove from there this morning, it took a while but it wasn’t that bad?.... wasn’t that bad? really, cos i saw 2 cars crash into parked cars and another on its side in a ditch.... what planet are these people on???

The way i see it, it’s your car, you pay for it and if you don’t want to risk driving it then you shouldn’t be pressured to, especially when you are willing to get in any other way possible. I know you can get winter tyres, chains and all sorts of kit to deal with snow and ice and trust me, i’ll gladly do that when i don’t have an mot due and other repairs to do on the car.

Has anyone else had this sort of ‘pressure’ from work, how have you dealt with it?

tell them to sit on a pointy stick and spin:D

some people like to look big when they are really little, you will meet loads like them. If the pics were taken while driving I would forward them on to the police with contact detials.

if it carrys on then forward the facebook discussions to some one higher up, im sure this is a form of workplace bullying

red_eye

john_white wrote: »

How do you expect to get experience driving in ice and snow if you refuse to try?

Wow you did notice that the op said they are a NEW driver? most likely with little experence on normal conditions.

Lum

Also the time to get experience driving in ice and snow is not when you are trying to get onto site for 9AM.

Save that for an empty car park with nobody around, not the A470 in the Cardiff rush hour full of idiots in their X5s trying to get past you.

Joe_Horner

Lum wrote: »

... full of idiots in their X5s trying to get past you.

Followed quickly by having to claim because it turns out they didn't know how to stay safe in snow after all. Not that there was anything they could have done different, of course..... :rotfl:

Lum

Yes, and a 19 yr old who is already paying £170 a month is going to see their premiums rocket once their insurance history contains a non-fault accident caused by a plonker in an X5 trying to overtake them. Assuming it doesn't drag out for years and get counted as fault in the meantime.

londonTiger

vikingaero wrote: »

Best thing to do is to find a nearby empty car park with no lampposts or bollards and practice. Try slamming on the brakes at 10mph and above and see how long it takes to stop. They try turning and accelerating to learn the limits.

make sure it's very emppty.

Theyt have advanced driving courses in some states in the US. Where you drive at 50mpg and then swerve last minute and then you try to correct yourself back into the lane. It teaches you exactly how impossible it is to control a car when it goes out of control at speed.

They do other tests like testing yuor braking distance. Most people dont realise just how long the braking distance can be until they learn for the first time in an accident.

Failing that it might be useful to take your car out on a trackday.

davids3511

Nerja wrote: »

Its beyond me why so many people go out when its snowing on normal car tyres, let alone summer tyres with 2mm tread.

If your employer expects you to drive in the snow, then I would suggest that your employer sends you on a snow driving course and supplies you with winter tyres and/or snow chains.

I have a 4x4, but there are mountain roads not far from here where it is illegal to drive on them without chains.

Its no surprise that the UK grinds to a halt when there is a bit of snow if the mentality is to try and drive in it as if it is a summer's day.

To the OP - stand your ground and don't drive in the snow as you and your car are not equipped to do it.

And whose fault is that? It isn't her bosses. If I was her boss, knowing all this palaver about getting to work and her being totally unprepared, I'd be looking for a replacement. Plenty of good people out there in this recession who would get to work with no whinging.

As for the one TELLING me she was going home early, bye bye too.

Lum

So for the sake of getting an extra two days* work out of them, you'd risk the lives of your staff.

What a short-termist view, even if you were a sociopath, surely the risk of a financial cost of having to train up replacement staff or pay a couple of weeks sick pay while their bones mend makes this approach a bad idea.

If it was a higher paying job then perhaps it would be reasonable to expect your staff to spend the money on winter tyres and similar preparations, but at 19 yrs old I doubt Caz** is in the 40% tax bracket just yet.

* Today is the second snow day in south wales. My boss has told me to work from home even though I do have winter tyres, my GF's boss insisted that everyone come in and do their full hours even though he sodded off home at lunchtime
** I misread the username as Cardiff_Gaz the other day, apologies for using "he" in my previous posts.

caz_cardiff87

Lum wrote: »

Did you actually read the OP? He requires his car for work as he has to travel to multiple sites, and the tyres are already booked in for replacement when he gets paid. He just doesn't want to have to drive to work in the snow and is looking for legal ways to avoid doing this without losing his job!

It's far from being an ornament on the drive.

Please try to remember what it was like being 19, and then factor in just how stupid insurance for young people has gotten these days. The OP is somehow struggling along with this car-requiring job, somehow making ends meet despite being at a £170 a month disadvantage compared to his older (and probably better paid) co-workers. Plenty of people in this situation would have given up and gone on the dole by now. The OP just didn't want to drive the car in it's current state in the snow.

How did it turn out in the end BTW?

I’m 25 ;-) and female but it’s all good! first car tho, only passed my test last year (no money for it during uni, very little need to drive back then, graduated in 2010 and still struggling to get out of the money pit). It was fine, i was never at risk of losing my job by not driving, at worst you don’t get paid or take annual leave. 3 other members of staff didn’t come in, me and another colleague found alternative ways so it wasn’t like i was the only one feeling a bit squiffy about it lol. Had i had been at my main site, i wouldn’t have needed the car, but sods law i was rota’d at another site where you need to drive.

The only thing that spurred me to create this thread was from comments i got from other colleagues (not my boss) that had irked me, being a new driver and them driving longer than i’ve been alive.... they all seemed quite flippant to me being nervous, contrast that with both parents calling me urging me not to get in the car... confusion erupted lol

caz_cardiff87

Lum wrote: »

So for the sake of getting an extra two days* work out of them, you'd risk the lives of your staff.

What a short-termist view, even if you were a sociopath, surely the risk of a financial cost of having to train up replacement staff or pay a couple of weeks sick pay while their bones mend makes this approach a bad idea.

If it was a higher paying job then perhaps it would be reasonable to expect your staff to spend the money on winter tyres and similar preparations, but at 19 yrs old I doubt Caz** is in the 40% tax bracket just yet.

* Today is the second snow day in south wales. My boss has told me to work from home even though I do have winter tyres, my GF's boss insisted that everyone come in and do their full hours even though he sodded off home at lunchtime
** I misread the username as Cardiff_Gaz the other day, apologies for using "he" in my previous posts.

none of my colleague prep their cars for winter - we discussed winter tyres before and the majority were of the opinion for a couple days of snow it was a waste of money, one guy does do it because he’s up in the valleys and they get hit harder with bad weather this time of year - even the boss doesn’t bother changing hers and no one has ago if you don’t prep. The general plan of action is if you can’t drive then find another way to get in, walk if its reasonable. I never don’t go to work just because of snow but i still have to listen to the oldies going on about how they drove 40 odd miles for 4 hours and nearly died / crashed / skidded / flipped in the process ’so don’t worry, you’ll be fine!’ lol

Also... you’re right i’m def not in the 40% tax bracket lol