For many workers, the most dangerous thing that they have to do is to drive to work in the morning or drive home at night. Their commute, which may happen at rush-hour, drastically increases the odds that they will be involved in a car accident. That may be more dangerous than anything they would actually do on the job.
But what if you get involved in a crash on your way to work? Can you then claim workers’ comp benefits? After all, there would’ve been no reason for you to be on the road if you didn’t have to drive to your place of employment, so it does seem like the two are related.
The coming-and-going rule
In most cases, you will actually not be covered under workers’ comp laws. This is due to the coming-and-going rule. It essentially says that commutes do not count because employees are not on the clock. Employers also cannot control where people decide to live and where they work, so the level of risk for all employees can be vastly different.
There are some exceptions. For instance, maybe your boss asks you to pick something up on your way into the office, meaning you start working before you arrive. Another potential exception is if you have to go to a job site after going to the office. For example, perhaps you drove to the central office building, picked up a company work truck, and then started driving to the site. If you get injured on that second drive, it would be covered under workers’ comp laws.
You can see that traffic accidents are one area where things get a bit complicated. Make sure that you know about all the legal options at your disposal if you’ve been injured.