• Guest - w'd love to know what you think about the forum! Take the 2025 Survey »

Driving Company Miles

P

poacher_joe

Active Member
Messages
34
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Insulin
Hello All :)

I am wondering whether it is a reasonable request for me to ask my employer that I can use my personal car for business miles (around 400 per month).

I have used both my personal and hire car whilst working at my employer, the actual car is not a problem I enjoy trying out new cars. But I ran into an issue today when I was driving home in a hire car, the journey was around 200 miles, 50 miles in I felt a hypo so pulled over in a service station. My blood glucose machine didn’t work so I just had to guess my carbohydrate intake and eat a meal with no insulin.

This experience was quite scary as the potential issues are endless.

The reason I would like to use my personal car is because I always have spare glucose machine, hypo treatment kit and additional snacks. You may say that I should take a spare machine in the hire car, what happens if I forget and leave this in my car (this has happened before).

I am worried to ask because they said it costs a lot more in expenses for a personal car, this is one of the reasons I am required to use a hire car.

Has anyone else experienced this before and what did you do?

Many thanks

Joe
 
Hi, I have used my own car in the past for work only a couple of times and their policy was so many pence per mile expenses. All I did was tell them how many miles and claimed it back. Now obviously I'm only talking of a few trips of about 80 to 90 miles or so and if you are doing it in the 100s and regularly then it may not be as easy for them, you will just after ask.

Also make sure your insurance covers you for business use? If not and the unthinkable happens you may not be insured, and that my friend could prove very costly indeed!!
 
poacher_joe said:
The reason I would like to use my personal car is because I always have spare glucose machine, hypo treatment kit and additional snacks. You may say that I should take a spare machine in the hire car, what happens if I forget and leave this in my car (this has happened before).
Click to expand...

Which bg meter do you use? The meters are given away free by the meter company's as they reap the rewards in the sale of the test strips, in the event that you did leave one in a hire car you could keep a few spare meters in reserve, if your under the care of a hospital diabetes clinic the DSN will give you a few.

Sorry not addressing your question but just thought I'd comment on the above.
 
Take a grab bag with you.
If you can't drive the vehicle provided, you risk your job.
 
poacher_joe said:
My blood glucose machine didn’t work so I just had to guess my carbohydrate intake and eat a meal with no insulin.

This experience was quite scary as the potential issues are endless.
Click to expand...
Whilst it's unlikely, there is always the possibility that the machine in your car might not have worked either, so you'd still have been in the position you were. It happens sometimes. As others have said, it probably makes more sense just to stick a spare meter (the Bayer Contour USB ones are not very big) in a pocket in your workbag just as back up, than switch to using your car.
 
@poacher_joe - I don't know exactly the terms around which your employer's transport arrangements work. I have managed folks in a scenario where it was possible for employees to use their own vehicles, for occasional travel, but the corporate policy was to use hire cars.

That particular company would cover any employee's car on their corporate scheme, provided the use of the employee car had been formally approved by their line manager, so this, in that case, negated the need for the employee to alter their own insurance to reflect full business use. Not all employees do this - and it isn't a size thing, so you would have to carefully check your employer policy, and continue to check it had not changed at any time.

However the rationale of the corporate body in using hire cars was they could be assured of the roadworthy/reliability status of any given vehicle, and also that there was adequate provision of roadside assistance, should anything go wrong.

As a manager, it could be a pain in the particulars to approve a variance from policy, every time an individual wanted to do their own thing, so I used to keep that option for exceptional circumstances - such as extremely short notice of the requirement for that person to drive company miles. My or my under managers jobs weren't about approving exceptions, but about delivering for the company.

I'm afraid, my view would have been that you just needed to get your act together and be organised. A spare meter in a briefcase, laptop bag or general work bag doesn't seem like it would fundamentally change what bag you chose, or how you went about your day.

I'm sorry if that feels unapologetic, but just giving you an insight into the response you might well get.
 
You must carry everything you need all the time whatever car you are in. Plus carry extra hypo treatment and snacks. What would you do if the car broke down, you might be waiting hours. I do 100s miles per week, driving 3 or 4 cars a day. I carry everything in a small bag which never leaves my side.
 
Back
Top