The double whammy

In my past professional life, I had the opportunity to travel to other areas of the country on business.   Typically, as an employee driving for work, I would pay for all expenses myself and then turn in an expense report for reimbursement after the trip, as most companies do.

We had a corporate travel policy and as employees driving for the company there were certain things we had to do while traveling.   For one, we had to waive the insurance option offered by the rental car company and use our own personal insurance.   Knowing what I know today, as an employee driving, that was not such a good idea.   We also had to pay for the rental car with a personal credit card, which leads me to my point.   There are several legal theories which assigned my liability to the company while I was an employee driving, but now with red light cameras, photo radar vans and speed limit cameras, there is a whole subset of issues which make my former employers policy not very friendly to me the employee driving.

Apparently, Hertz, Budget and all the other national car rental chains now have a relationship with American Traffic Solutions, the largest operator in the US of red light and speed cameras.   This was necessitated by the large dollar amount of uncollected fines the rental car companies were trying to collect in the past, now they just add it to your check out bill.

The net result, your an employee driving for business, you get a speeding ticket tacked onto your car rental fee and your employer will not reimburse you.

Any company should have a corporate driver training program which emphasizes driver safety, but also covers your rights as an employee in the event you get a photo radar ticket while driving for work.

The article … http://usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/cars-trucks/daily-news/100809-Car-Renters-Beware-Traffic-Cameras/