Using own car between 2 offices?

[barnowltwittwoo]

I stared a new job back in April. There was no mention of me going to another branch which is an 80 mile round trip from home however, a couple of comments have been made that makes me think I’m going to be asked to go. 2 or may be 3 days a week. This is due to a staff member going on maternity leave. As I say never discussed at interview stage.

The advert for my job did say you must have driving licence which I do. An automatic. Again, this was never discussed or raised at interviews. To go between branches they have the use of company vehicles and fuel is provided for those vehicles. They are manual though.

I am not sure where I stand here. My car is old. I am looking at a new one but not until October or November time so I don’t want to be adding possibly 240 miles a week to the clock. The office I currently work in is 7 miles door to door. A factor in accepting the job was being so close to home and school for my DC. If discussions were clear at interview about travel, I am pretty confident I’d have turned the position down. I don’t think I can do anything here though can I? My contract just says company name at place of work, no address.

I’d disagree. A full license means not a provisional. It isn’t a distinction between manual and automatic

And yes my insurance company said I needed business insurance. Commuting according to them was to one fixed place of work. 🤷🏻‍♀️

... and the tax-free cap goes down to 25p per mile after the first 10,000 miles in each tax year.

It depends how it was worded on the application. You could ask someone if they have a full UK B class car license for example

Yes you do. You’re covered to commute to your normal place of work under commuting. Not travel to other sites.

That was what my insurance said too.

I used to work in a similar situation - same company, two sites, site 1 a few miles away from home, site 2 about 4 miles away. Site 1 was my designated base and indeed I did work there about 80% of the time but I was contractually obliged to cover site 2 when needed. If I went from home to site 2 I could claim mileage for that journey, less what I'd normally do from home to site 1. Or if I had to go midway through the day I could claim for the whole journey.
I would agree you need business insurance. "Commuting" normally only covers a single fixed place of work, and won't cover any travel between 2 sites during the working day. Speak tp your insurers to be sure of course but mine were pretty clear that if I was going anywhere other than my base I needed business. I didn't find it added a lot to my premium actually.

If they want you to use your own car, park it round the corner and say DH is having to borrow it to get to work. They can provide you a car if they want you to travel that far.

Just to clear up the business insurance thing, if you are paid expenses (mileage rate) for driving on behalf of a business then you need business use class insurance. Commuting class only covers journeys to work where the mileage expense is not reimbursed.

Business insurance doesnt cost any more, in over 20 years of needing it, theres never been a difference in the quotes

An automatic license is a full license.

But is the point not that they do have cars available but only manual and op has an automatic licence.