Category Archives: Working in Car

Distracted Driving: Federal Guidelines Proposed For Automakers

Today’s post is by my colleague Jon Gelman of New Jersey.

The NTHSA proposal for automatic device disabling could potentially prevent a lot of accidents caused by distracted driving.

After years of accidents in the workplace caused by the use of mobile devices in vehicles, the Federal Government has proposed universal guidelines to encourage automobile manufacturers to electronically disable these devices when a vehicle is in operation.  The enforcement of this safety-first proposal may establish a legal standard to universally bar the use of such devices in vehicles and encourage employees to have a safer working environment.

See: U.S. Department of Transportation Proposes ‘Distraction’ Guidelines for Automakers
“Issued by the Department’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the guidelines would establish specific recommended criteria for electronic devices installed in vehicles at the time they are manufactured that require visual or manual operation by drivers. The announcement of the guidelines comes just days after President Obama’s FY 2013 budget request, which includes $330 million over six years for distracted driving programs that increase awareness of the issue and encourage stakeholders to take action. “

 

Image: David Castillo Dominici / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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Employee Penalized For Not Following Safety Rules

In this guest post our colleague Jon L. Gelman of New Jersey highlights a worrisome recent ruling. In the state of Missouri, if an employee does not follow their employers’ safety rules and is injured, their award may be significantly reduced. He points out that this logic works in opposition of what the workers’ compensation act was originally supposed to do, which is to protect workers. With that as its goal, “It would be far more logical to… prevent the unsafe work in the first place.”

An employee’s workers’ compensation award maybe be reduced for failing to follow an employer’s safety rules.

An employee’s workers’ compensation award maybe be reduced for failing to follow an employer’s safety rules. A Missouri Court ruled that reducing an injured employee’s award by 25% to 50% for failing to follow an employer’s safety rules was not unconstitutional. Continue reading →

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Workers’ Comp Benefits Off the Work Site: Work At Home, Travel

This post is the first of many you’ll be seeing on our blog by guest writer Tom Domer of Wisconsin. In this post, Tom notes that over 18-million people work from home today. He smartly questions the traditional criteria for whether work done from home can be applied to a workers’ compensation claim. 

We are living in a digital age.

After all, we’re living in a digital age. Increased use of things like cell phones and laptops challenges standard ideas of what a work-related injury is. 

A whole host of “Course of Employment” issues accompanies the increased prevalence of work done at home, enhanced significantly by computer technology. Many employees contract with their employers to work frequently or exclusively from their homes. Does an accident in the employee’s kitchen Continue reading →

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