Employers obligations?

[Nodnol]

Simply put, what insurance / cover / risk assessment and other factors would an employer require when sending employees out onto roads using push bikes?
Would we as the riders be personally liable should injury or damage occur to either us or a third party? Can we just refuse on safety grounds?
I've read that the Royal Mail are scrapping the use of bikes mainly down to safety concerns and accidents.
All help is appreciated thanks!

[Androcles]

I would have thought that if a company decides to use bicycles as a means of transport then they would have a duty of care to employees to make sure that the bikes were safe and regularly maintained, that the riders were trained to cycling proficiency standards, that they had clear rules as to how riders were to behave on the roads, and that insurance was provided.

Employees would have a duty to observe the rules of the road, so for example, if an employee ran down a pensioner whilst cycling at speed on the pavement and injured them, this would clearly be a breach of company rules as well as illegal, so the employee could be disciplined as well as prosecuted and possibly sued individually. The company might also be sued, but might be able to claim that the employee was in clear breach of company rules and should be liable.

The company might also make it a rule that employees were obliged to check their bikes daily and make sure that brakes, light and bell worked and that the bike was in a roadworthy condition, but would be responsible for checking periodically that employees were doing this.

[Nodnol]

So in essence, in the event of an accident, the rider could be held personally liable by the victim for example and therefore sued, even if the employee is covered by liability insuance?

[Androcles]

All I was saying is that if you look at the parallel with company cars, (even a police car is a Company car!) and you drive it recklessly, and the company has rules that you obey the rules of the road, then sure, you cannot escape responsibility for your actions.

It would depend if the company bore some culpability for your recklessness. So if you manager told you to deliver something and said "I don't care how you get it there, just do it on time" and that meant you cycling at speed the wrong way up a one way street and you hit a pedestrian looking the other way for traffic, then the company would bear some responsibility, as you were carrying our instructions.