Were you hurt while traveling to or from work, and now wondering whether workers' comp covers it? The going and coming rule is the general rule that injuries suffered during an ordinary commute are usually not considered work-related. In plain terms, once an employee is just heading to work or heading home on a normal route, that travel is usually treated as personal time, not part of the job.

What matters is whether the trip was truly just a commute or whether work made the travel part of the job. Coverage may still exist if an employer required the travel, paid for travel time, provided transportation, sent the worker on a special errand, or the worker was already performing job duties. Those facts can turn a commute case into a valid workers' compensation claim.

In Hawaii, these disputes are handled under Hawaii Workers' Compensation Law, HRS Chapter 386, usually through the Department of Labor and Industrial Relations. The rule can matter a lot because many workers spend long hours on difficult roads, whether stuck on H-1 through Honolulu or driving hazardous routes elsewhere in the islands. If a crash happens, the key question is not just where it happened, but why the worker was on the road and who benefited from the trip. That can affect compensability, medical benefits, and wage-loss payments.