After revisiting the town’s policies on usage of personal vehicles by town employees over the past couple weeks, the Board of Selectmen (BOS) approved a new policy that seeks to address potential insurance and liability questions.

First Selectman Matt Hoey said at a November meeting that as the town regularly reviews policies like these, Town Counsel Pam Millman recommended some updates both for the town’s protection as well as for the benefit of individual employees.

Hoey said at the meeting that a large part of the policy is simply meant to inform employees who drive particular types of vehicles for the town or drive their personal vehicles for town business that there are certain insurance requirements needed for those individuals to be adequately covered. The town does not require these employees have these specific types of coverage, he said, but seeks to make clear where town coverage ends and personal insurance begins, among other things.

Some pushback by employees resulted in Human Resources Director Mitch Goldblatt returning to the BOS in early December with a handful of issues, one of those being related to motorcycles.

The original policy banned employees from using motorcycles on town business, including when employees traveled to conferences, or even just for quick trips around town. Goldblatt told the Courier a handful of employees expressed that it was more convenient for them to ride their motorcycles in some of these specific circumstances.

After some discussion, the BOS chose to continue disallowing the use of motorcycles, citing potential town liability as well as concerns for employee safety.

The new policies do not apply to police or fire departments, Goldblatt said.

The way the insurance and liability coverage of town employees functions is complex and multi-faceted, Goldblatt said. Damage to personal vehicles, even if the employee is on town business, is the responsibility of the employee’s personal insurance for the most part, Goldblatt said, which is a state law. In specific circumstances, or when there are injuries involved third parties not covered by an individual’s insurance policy, town insurance would take over, he said.

Goldblatt said that the town’s insurance advisor recommended employees not be allowed to use motorcycles, but were comfortable with town officials making their own decisions on the subject.

“He wasn’t coming back at me saying, ‘Oh, you’re taking a big risk, I wouldn’t do that if I were you.’ He was just saying, ‘That’s your call.’ You take a little bit of a risk on your workers’ comp, a little bit of a risk on your insurance potentially,” Goldblatt said.

Allowing motorcycles would not have increased any costs related to the town’s insurance, Goldblatt told the BOS, but due to injuries being much more common in motorcycle accidents, there was much more of a chance of workers’ compensation or other taxpayer-funded expenses in those circumstances, he said.

Most of the rest of policy covers very obvious, common-sense things, according to Goldblatt—things like drinking and driving or picking up hitchhikers.

Some towns do not allow the use of personal vehicles for town business at all, Goldblatt said, but Guilford also wants to avoid putting unnecessary burdens on employees.

“As an insurance agent, they’re overly cautious. The most cautious thing would be never let any employee ride in any motor vehicle that’s not a town vehicle ever,” Goldblatt said. “But that’s not realistic.”