damage to company van

xbox_99

so my contract says" if you drive a company van and you have an accident and you are found at fault, you must pay half the excess for the first accident and all the excess for the second and further accidents :eek:

so ; 1. is this legal/ correct

i am asking as two other colleagues have damage the van costing £700.

now the latest letter states "if for minor damage where we don't use our insurance to have the van repaired the full cost of the repair will be charged to the individual.

And the vans will have log books put in them...

is this reasonable or unfair?

thanks for any advice. cheers

marybelle01

I am not sure what the answer is, if there is one; but if you repeatedly damage a company vehicle and the fault is yours, more than a few employers will dismiss you. Would that be a better alternative?

xbox_99

very true but they would have to follow correct disciplinary procedures or just say you are not allowed to drive the vehicle...

marybelle01

They can refuse to allow you to drive the vehicle - it's theirs and not yours. To dismiss they would have to follow disciplinary procedures, assuming you have the required length of service, now two years, to make a claim - if you don't it could simply be a "goodbye note". But not a great many employers are going to willing pay up the costs of "fault" incidents. An odd one maybe. In the right circumstances. I once had one that consisted of someone smashing my back windscreen when I was away from the vehicle. It's the sort of thing that can happen and you can't help or prevent. But I doubt my employer at the time would have been as impressed by "ran into bollard whilst texting" (not that I would have been!). But I do digress... they may not have a legal authority to say this in retrospect, but on the other hand, what are the consequences of arguing about it? Legal rights only work if you will or can exercise them. So if they refuse to pay - what will happen? And what can they do about it? And are they willing to do something about it? Those are the practical issues.

xbox_99

so who says what is a fair amount to excess. (which we don't know the cost.)

Excess varies from policy to policy or the cost of the insurance premium is off-set against the excess on the policy.

too many question and many scenario's of accidents

thanks marybelle

marybelle01

What I am sure of is that the law doesn't say what is fair. All the law can do is enforce your contract and whatever that says. But to enforce that it requires you to take legal action if it is broken. And even if you are right, that isn't always without consequences. But the starting point is that if your contract says something, that is what you have agreed to. Technically the employer can't unilaterally change that - but as I said, that is fine in theory.....

paddedjohn

If your job involves driving a van and you keep crashing it then you are no good at your job and can be sacked/disciplined.

Denning.

Take out insurance for the excess? Shouldn't cost too much.

It isn't unreasonable for a company to make employees pay for damage which they caused.

Laurajo_2

It's a fairly common approach....

bugslet

You say in your contract, so yes they can, you have both reached an agreement and you signed it.

As for the change with the letter, that I would have thought was a bit of a grey area.

We don't have any requirement for our drivers to pay, but then again, they don't have many accidents. I am now touching so much wood you wouldn't beleive!