Recovered

If you recover another driver who’s run out of time in your own car,you drive truck back,he drives your car back ,do you have too have buisness insurance :question: ,what exactly is buisness insurance ,what’s wrong with normal car insurance .ta

No idea on the insurance but if he’s ran out of working time, done the 13 or 15 hours available, he can’t be recovered. Doesn’t matter whose car he is driving it counts as other work for the driver’s hours regs.

I would imagine there would be some kind of insurance requirement over and above the normal as presumably the company are paying you an allowance for using your car on company business. You wouldn’t be doing it for nothing?

If your private vehicle is being used for any kind of commercial activity then it will require business insurance

This situation happened many years ago at a place where I worked to recover a driver who ran out of driving hours but had hours available before a rest was needed - the company called their own insurers and had the car temporarily added to the company insurance - that allowed the recovered driver as well as the relief driver to both be insured on the car

Whether that is still an option these days I do not know

Coffeeholic:
No idea on the insurance but if he’s ran out of working time, done the 13 or 15 hours available, he can’t be recovered. Doesn’t matter whose car he is driving it counts as other work for the driver’s hours regs.

I would imagine there would be some kind of insurance requirement over and above the normal as presumably the company are paying you an allowance for using your car on company business. You wouldn’t be doing it for nothing?

They stuck me down for a extra hours pay for using my own car,he was only 15 mins from yard,they ( t.o bods on at that time ) were fine about it ( helping mate out) but the following day a t.o bod asked me if I had buisness insurance on my car :question: ,I said as far as I knew it was just normal run of the meal car insurance,he said if it was normal car insurance it wasn’t legal to do it,you have to have buisness insurance ,the strange thing is the t.o bod saying this recovered me in his own car about 6 months earlier ,has he buisness insurance :exclamation: .
Ta coffeee

ROG:
If your private vehicle is being used for any kind of commercial activity then it will require business insurance

This situation happened many years ago at a place where I worked to recover a driver who ran out of driving hours but had hours available before a rest was needed - the company called their own insurers and had the car temporarily added to the company insurance - that allowed the recovered driver as well as the relief driver to both be insured on the car

Whether that is still an option these days I do not know

Thanks rog,this is what they must be on about then ,you learn a new thing every day

Coffeeholic:
No idea on the insurance but if he’s ran out of working time, done the 13 or 15 hours available, he can’t be recovered. Doesn’t matter whose car he is driving it counts as other work for the driver’s hours regs.

I would imagine there would be some kind of insurance requirement over and above the normal as presumably the company are paying you an allowance for using your car on company business. You wouldn’t be doing it for nothing?

I bet he did lolol cos you can’t do enough for a good boss

You can let anyone drive your car as long as your or his insurance covers third party. It’s nothing to do with business it’s just someone driving your car surely.

I was under the impression it was only other work, if the driver was under instruction, say to return the works van back to operating centre, if he was however allowed to take the van home or dispose of his time how he wanted, whether he was in the boss’s Porsche or whatever, he can do what he wants. If that isn’t the case then I wouldn’t be able to drive home after most shifts as I’m maxed out during the day

If you do anything that involves driving your car at your employers request, you will need business insurance. So that’s if you’re doing them a favour in any way, shape or form. It just means that if your employer asks you to do something for them, the insurance covers you. I’ve had it put on as an option several times in the past, but it has never cost me a penny.

dozy:
If you recover another driver who’s run out of time in your own car,you drive truck back,he drives your car back ,do you have too have buisness insurance :question: ,what exactly is buisness insurance ,what’s wrong with normal car insurance .ta

Technically as it was on business use then I suppose you should have business insurance, but if it was a mate then of course you just get him to say you’ve lent him your car.
However a lot of people have been caught out by the fact that their insurance policy doesn’t allow them to drive other vehicles.

Business insurance is just what it says, insurance to use a car for business, instead private car insurance which normally is on the policy as “social, domestic pleasure and commuting use only”.

Mattwoodtransport:
I was under the impression it was only other work, if the driver was under instruction, say to return the works van back to operating centre, if he was however allowed to take the van home or dispose of his time how he wanted, whether he was in the boss’s Porsche or whatever, he can do what he wants. If that isn’t the case then I wouldn’t be able to drive home after most shifts as I’m maxed out during the day

There was a court case involving a coach company, they asked it’s drivers to meet it’s coaches all over the place and start their shift once they got in the coach.
I think basically the ruling states that only commuting to and from your normal place of work can be considered as your own time for the purposes of a daily of weekly rest period.

So are you agreeing muckles or not? As I said, if it’s under instruction, then its duty time, other work, not sure about whether the regularity of said act comes into play, but was always under impression if I was free to do as I please, once I had relinquished charge of the lorry, I was on rest? Anyone else clarify?

The other thing to bare in mind is that business cover isn’t necessarily expensive. When I worked for a school I got send on the odd course and used my own car to get their. I queried this with my insurer and was told I needed business cover. How much did they sting me for, an extra £15 a year so hardly the end of the world.

The other thing to bare in mind with when someone is driving your car using their own insurance is they need the car owners permission. Now if you car is leased you don’t own it, so the cover wouldn’t be valid. Motability for example go out of their way in their paperwork to point out that their customers are not able to authorise others to drive their cars.

Mattwoodtransport:
So are you agreeing muckles or not? As I said, if it’s under instruction, then its duty time, other work, not sure about whether the regularity of said act comes into play, but was always under impression if I was free to do as I please, once I had relinquished charge of the lorry, I was on rest? Anyone else clarify?

No I’m not, well only if you’ve parked you truck at your regular base, then you’re on rest. I’ll try and find the ruling from the court case that clarified it.

Travelling time
Where a vehicle coming within the scope of the EU rules is neither at the driver’s home nor at the employer’s operational centre where the driver is normally based, but is at a separate location, time spent travelling to or from that location to take charge of the vehicle may not be counted as a rest or break, unless the driver is in a ferry or train and has access to a bunk or couchette.

The whole of a journey from base/home back to base/home must be recorded officially

For most that means starting the records from when they get to base at the start of a shift and finishes when they go home from base at the end of a shift

For others it may mean starting records when they get in base for the start of a tramping week and end when they finish at base at the end of the week tramping

In both cases rest periods can simply be periods where no records are shown

Apart from actually being at base/home or on rest, records must be shown without any gaps in them

If a driver runs out of driving time before a rest is due then that time can be used to do other work such as driving vehicles under 3500 kg GVW until rest time

A driver cannot start a rest at point (A) away from base/home then finish the rest at point (B) - the driver must end the rest back at point (A)

Lets say the driver is based at Leicester and needs to start a rest at Coventry … the records must show the end of the rest finished at Coventry - what the driver did on their own time during the rest is up to them so they could have their mate come and pick them up from Coventry take them to Leicester and then drop them back to Coventry to restart

What the driver cannot do is to show a gap in the journey records from Coventry to Leicester so starting a rest in Coventry and ending the rest in Leicester is illegal

Thanks rog

KCLeblanc:
The other thing to bare in mind with when someone is driving your car using their own insurance is they need the car owners permission. Now if you car is leased you don’t own it, so the cover wouldn’t be valid. Motability for example go out of their way in their paperwork to point out that their customers are not able to authorise others to drive their cars.

Not true.
If I have a car on a personal lease scheme, then I can lend it to whomever I choose so long as they are insured. Motability is a whole different scheme which includes insurance as part of the deal. Many motability cars can be driven by others like spouses but they have to be named drivers.

If I lend my car to someone who is not a named driver on my insurance but is using their own; they will almost always be covered for third parties only. That is, if they prang it, the damage to my car will be down to them.

The TM mentioned upthread probably has a company car anyway.

Personally if I was out of time and didn’t do nights out I wouldn’t give a flying ■■■■ what insurance was or wasn’t in place on the ‘recovery’ vehicle so long as they got me home. Too many big girls blouses in this industry now flapping over the slightest non-events instead of just cracking on and getting the job done. :unamused:

Left hand down!:
Personally if I was out of time and didn’t do nights out I wouldn’t give a flying [zb] what insurance was or wasn’t in place on the ‘recovery’ vehicle so long as they got me home. Too many big girls blouses in this industry now flapping over the slightest non-events instead of just cracking on and getting the job done. :unamused:

+1 well said…isn’t it sad to see the way things progress nowadays…

dozy:
If you recover another driver who’s run out of time in your own car,you drive truck back,he drives your car back ,do you have too have buisness insurance :question: ,what exactly is buisness insurance ,what’s wrong with normal car insurance .ta

Yes you do have to have business insurance or have your car covered by your employer for business use as you are doing a journey for business, albeit for your employer.

What is wrong with normal car insurance? Well that is for social use and commuting to a single place of employment. You are using the car for business use for your employer. Normal car insurance doesn’t cover that.

And if you think its not an issue here’s a cautionary tale.

Years ago I used to work for Halfords. I was sent across Hull to pick up a part from a main dealer. At a set of traffic lights I turned right on a green filter and was hit by a nob from the opposite direction jumping the lights. It wrote his ■■■■■■ van off, putting the drivers wheel in the passenger footwell, thats how fast he was going, but thankfully because mine was an old Rover SD1 with steel bumpers it flattened the bumper, creased the wing but was still drivable. It came to light he was test driving the car, only had a provisional and wasn’t insured. Because Halfords covered employees using their cars for company business I was able to get my car repaired (I only had third party on my own insurance) and it didn’t affect my no claims. Had it been on my own insurance without business use, even if I had fully comp I’d have had to fork out for the repairs or lost my car and not been compensated. I could have lied but it would only need the other party to have said I was in my work gear and given the location was where there were a lot of dealerships they’d have figured out it was a business journey and then I’m in a world of crap.

As an aside, I put “single place of employment” in bold for a reason. Agency drivers need business insurance as commuting is classed by pretty much every single insurer as going to a single place of employment. The business insurance add-on to most policies costs nothing as there are different categories and this one, commuting to/from clients, is the lowest rated and usually free.

Meh. And now back in the real world people just get on with it as there are bigger things to worry about in life.