City worker hits car with van - who should pay?

[StVincent]

@FunkDaddy

Srsly, a bit of property damage, no injuries, as long as it is determined fraud is unlikely, it isn’t a firing offence unless she has a history of errors or negligence behind the wheel of city vehicles.

I know right? I mean, this is why we have HR specialists that understand the legal implications of firing people; otherwise hot-head managers would just add more liability to complicated and sensitive situations.

[Ratel]

Sure, but that could be the case if it were anyone’s car, assuming they were conspiring with the city driver, so they’d have to investigate in any event.

[Ratel]

Pointless hypothetical fails to even hypothetical properly…

[Jerry_Vandesic]

@Daneyul

So… all employees at fault in an accident–even a fender bender-- should be summarily fired? Even for a first time offense? Or is the fact that it’s her car the issue that makes you say this, even if there’s no indication of an intent to defraud?

She shouldn’t be fired for the accident, she should be fired, and charged with a crime, for fleeing the scene of an accident.

[ChuckV]

Did she fail to exchange insurance information with herself?

[Michael_R_Smith]

@SirCracked

Well, it raises the possibility that the person has committed some action intentionally for their own gain

Maybe but when I drove a government car it was for after hours callouts. I drove it home every day and it spent most of its time closest to my own car, so a collision (when moving the cars around for example) was a distinct possibility.

[fuzzyfungus]

Depending on the circumstances of the accident, I’d be leery of automatic termination:

There are better and worse driving techniques; but you have to be clinging pretty hard to the just world hypothesis to assert that ‘good’ drivers don’t hit and get hit from time to time, especially in urban driving(on the plus side, while urban areas are cluttered environments, a lot of those collisions will be low speed and thus relatively cheap and safe).

As an HR thing, punishments for things that sometimes cannot be avoided are bad policy(even aside from the question of whether they are unethical). Do you want your employees driving safely when on the job? Definitely. Is telling them “Every time you get behind the wheel, you just might get fired for something you have limited control over” going to stop them from getting into accidents now and again, or just add some churn and a sense of grievance?

If the driver is found to have been acting negligently, that would be Bad. If the driver is found to have been self-dealing by playing some sort of insurance-payout game against the municipality, fire them oh-so-hard. Barring that, though, zero-accident policies are kind of a witch hunt.

[ambiguator]

You’re right guys.
The collision was probably the parked car’s fault.

[pixleshifter]

The City should pay for the damages, and then fire her for bad driving.
Edit: Just read through and seen the same opinion posted.
My opinion stands.

[David_Colwell]

In Houston a Police horse backed into a parked car, caving in the drivers door. The city said government immunity prevented them from liability.

[Steve_Nordquist]

Well! She will never drive horses into other horses (backwards) in this town again!
[Rips up A2-size license painted by a horse]

[Ignatius]

As I understand it, cop cars in NC aren’t insured. It literally takes an act of (state) congress (well, legislature at any rate) to get compensation if your vehicle is damaged by a police car here. I suspect that’s pretty common in the U.S. but using a search engine trying to get more info mostly resulted in a bunch of scam sites about how to get out of a DUI charge.

[Daneyul]

So, again–you’re saying anyone in an accident that’s deemed their fault should be summarily fired?

If so, I truly hope you aren’t in a position to fire anyone.