I feel that an engineer should be payed from the moment he steps into his van to the moment he steps out of it onto his drive way. If you drive to the first job in your own time should you be paying tax for your use of the company vehicle after all its in your time. and are you covered by insurance the (companies) to use the vehicle to go to work in this way? I know companies do give extra incentives to work in this way but at the end of the day the company is just trying to maximize on the 8 hrs it pays you. expecting you to be on site at 8 oclock but not leaving till 4.30
I think thats fine as a site engineer but as a road engineer it may be two hours till you get to your firt call I think there should be some compensation due in that sort of senario.

Titus