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

Lum

Now you see, if the factory owner is pitching in with the actual work, I can respect that, but overall that kind of culture is dying. If you remember the traditional factory (and mining) work used to come with a place to live either on site or very near to the factory, so the snow issue was solved that way. It's not how I'd choose to live and plenty of the practices of that day are considered barbaric these days but I guess at least you could guarantee living near to work and being able to get in.

I'm no fan of excessive health and safety either. Some people do take it way to far. As always the correct answer lies in the middle, exactly where in the middle varies with circumstances. In the case of your factory it probably is reasonable, but I bet if a worker rang the boss and said "hey, I can't even get up the hill on foot, can you pick me up in your land rover" the boss would probably oblige.

I wonder has there been any case law where an employer has forced someone to come in, in adverse weather conditions, under threat of the sack or whatever, that person has ended up killed or seriously injured, and the employer has been held responsible because they couldn't demonstrate that the demand was reasonable.

As for schools, I'd rather not talk about that, I'm very familiar with such no-win rules&punishments however.