New Traffic Law-$754 fine, 3 points & Mandatory Court Appearance

Effective January 1, 2010 California has enacted the “Move-Over” law specifically designed to protect police officers who are parked on the side of the road, or freeway, and other parked emergency vehicle personnel from being run over by motorists not paying attention. The new law brings stiff penalties, a $754.00 fine, 3 points on your license, and a mandatory court appearance.

Employers have to understand the impact on them as well. Employees who drive company vehicles, or their own vehicles for company business, must be informed that any fine incurred as a result of this new law is completely their libility and will not be paid by the company. This is consistent with any moving violation which attaches to the driver and not to the vehicle.

Let’s take this one step further. An employee, on their day off, gets cited for this new law and now has 3 three points added on their license (and what if they already had 1 or 2 points!) and their job duties include driving a company vehicle (making deliveries, demonstration drives, etc.). The three points could dramatically alter the status of their license (suspension or loss depending if they had an other points) thereby rendering them incapable of performing their duties. In addition, the 3 points alone could send up the insurance premiums that the employer pays or the insurance company could inform the employer that they will no longer provide insurance coverage on that individual. Now what??? And by the way, if you terminate the employee because they can no longer drive, the EDD has previously determined that under the above circumstances the employee is eligible for unemployment because the behavior that caused them to loose their job was not work related. Yep!

Okay, what should you do? For those of you who do not already have a policy in place, immediately put one out  (which they will sign) explaining that they understand that as a condition of continued employment they must keep their drivers license in good standings and if they fail to do so, they could be subject to disciplinary action up to and including termination.  You can also create a form for the new hire packet and include the policy in your handbook the next time it is revised

Keep point: You can not make them pay for the increase in premium so please do not ask!LOL 

For more information: www.moveoveramerica.com