dissenting.
I respectfully dissent from the majority opinion which now enables an employer to “collectively bargain” its way out of the Workers’ Compensation Act (Act) and permits other employers to evade the test of “furtherance of the employer’s interests” merely by promulgating a travel payment policy that can evade the Act.1
Claimant Gerald J. Williams (Claimant) filed a claim petition alleging that the seri*1147ous, paraplegic injuries he sustained in a motor vehicle accident on an icy roadway while traveling from Scranton to Bradford County were sustained in the course of his employment. The Workers Compensation Judge (WCJ) awarded Claimant temporary and total disability benefits, medical and/or litigation costs. The Workers Compensation Appeal Board (WCAB) reversed the decision of the WCJ and from that order, Claimant appealed to this Court.
The importance of the special circumstances of this case, especially the location, terrain, distance required to be traveled, risks of severe hazardous weather and road conditions and the role of the bargaining agreements are not readily apparent from the majority opinion.
Claimant was involved in a one-car automobile accident on March 12, 1992, approximately one mile north of the New York-Pennsylvania border. The weather was severe enough to discourage Claimant’s usual travelling companion to turn back after starting out. Claimant, however, being an apprentice, continued travelling from Scranton to Sayre in Bradford County (job site) when, while crossing an overpass, Claimant’s pickup truck struck a patch of ice, skidded, left the roadway and overturned several times. Claimant was thrown from the vehicle and sustained severe injuries, including two fractured thoracic vertebrae (T8-9), a bruised spinal cord and a fractured right and left pelvic iliac bone. He is confined to a wheelchair and does not have any motor control below the sternum, including the use of his lower extremities.
Claimant was employed as an apprentice electrician by Mateo Electrical (Employer) from February 11, 1992, until March 12, 1992, at a project where Employer was the primary contractor for a construction project. Claimant worked from 7:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. daily. His home in Dunmore (a suburb of Scranton) was exactly 100.3 miles from the job site and the job site was 95 miles from the Scranton city limits. In order to arrive timely at work, he had to rise at 4:00 a.m. and leave his home no later than 4:50 a.m. During the months of February and March, much of the drive to work was done in darkness. Working this job required Claimant to be on the road four hours and twenty minutes per day because he was not earning enough at the apprentice rate to be able to afford to stay in a motel in the area of the job site.
Claimant was an apprentice journeyman (apprentice) with Local Union 81 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) and as such, subject to the provisions of a collective bargaining agreement, a document known as the “Inside Agreement” (CBA).2 Claimant was in the fifth period of a six-period/five-year electrician apprenticeship requiring 8000 hours of education and training while paying from one-third of the journeyman’s rate of $18, i.e., $6 in the first year to two-thirds in the fifth period, i.e., $12.49.
The Business Manager for the IBEW, Local 81, testified that while a journeyman may refuse an assignment on the first turn, apprentices may not refuse an assignment, even in a distant locale, such as Bradford County, under any circumstances, because this would be a disadvantage to a contractor. The CBA requires a ratio of three journeymen to one apprentice. Inclusion of the lower paid apprentice results in a lower aggregate electrician’s wage for the contractor, thus lowering labor costs and making the contractor more competitive when bidding for a job.
The membership of the IBEW is concentrated in Lackawanna County. There were no apprentices in Bradford County. Thus, once Claimant was assigned to Employer’s job in Sayre, he was required to make the 200-mile, four-hour and twenty-minute round *1148trip every day in order to comply with the apprenticeship terms of the CBA. If Claimant or other apprentices refused to travel there, the employer would have been forced to incur a higher aggregate wage rate by using all journeymen, assuming journeymen would choose to accept employment in that vicinity at that time of the year.
Under the CBA, a contractor has the right to transfer employees in the IBEW to any job it has within the eight-county geographical region encompassed by Local 81. However, in order for the injuries sustained by Claimant to be work-related and compensa-ble, Claimant’s situation must fall into one of the exceptions of the “coming and going rule.” Generally, injuries sustained while commuting to and from, or “coming and going” from work are not compensable under the Act, since they are not considered to be in the course of employment (the coming and going rule). Peer v. Workmen’s Compensation Appeal Board (B &W Construction), 94 Pa.Cmwlth. 540, 503 A.2d 1096 (Pa.Cmwlth.1986). The majority recognizes the exceptions to the “coming and going rule”, by which a travelling employee will be considered to have sustained an injury in the course of employment if he meets any one of the following exceptions:
1) Claimant’s employment contract included transportation;
2) Claimant had no fixed place of employment;
3) Claimant was on a special assignment; or
4) Special circumstances are such that the Claimant was furthering the business of the employer.
City of Monessen School District v. Workmen’s Compensation Appeal Board, 155 Pa.Cmwlth. 56, 624 A.2d 734 (1993); Rear v. Workmen’s Compensation Appeal Board (Fairman Drilling Company), 102 Pa. Cmwlth. 193, 517 A.2d 586 (1986).
The majority opinion perceives a conflict in the holdings of Peer and Rear and mistakenly attempts to settle it by holding that the facts of this case are the same as in Peer, Rear and Bechtel.3 The key factor to determining whether or not an injury during travel is compensable, however, should not be the travel allowance alone, but should be all the circumstances of the travel, e.g., location, extent, risk, etc., of which payment is only one factor, especially considering whether the nature of the travel furthers the business interests of the employer.
Strikingly, in contrast to Claimant’s case, in Peer, the claimant was a boilermaker who commuted to the job site in Ohio only thirty-five miles each way. He sustained serious injuries while on his way to work when he was involved in a motor vehicle accident. On an appeal to this Court, we analyzed §301(c) of the Act, 77 P.S. §411, which states that compensable injuries include those “sustained while the employee is actually engaged in the furtherance of the business or affairs of the employer, whether upon the employer’s premises or elsewhere.” The Peer court also discussed the exceptions to the general “coming and going” rule, which follow the criteria in Jones v. Workmen’s Compensation Appeal Board (Rehabilitation Coordinators Inc.), 88 Pa.Cmwlth. 426, 489 A.2d 1006 (Pa.Cmwlth.1985). In Peer, a collective bargaining agreement (CBA) between the employer and claimant’s union provided for a travel allowance. Commonwealth Court held merely that WCAB properly rejected the WCJ’s legal conclusion that the CBA, in and of itself, places claimant’s travel to and from work within the course of his employment.
Although, in Peer, the CBA provided extra compensation to union members, Peer did not require employer to provide transportation and did not include any special circumstances regarding the travel involved, both of which are present in the instant case. In addition, the Court expressly found that the allowance in Peer did not further the employer’s business. Accordingly, this Court held that the CBA did not bring claimant’s transportation to and from work within the scope of his employment. Peer, thus, first focused on the furtherance of employer’s interests and only then found nothing in the record, *1149including the travel pay provisions of the CBA, to justify the WCJ’s reliance on the travel pay as benefiting the employer to the extent required by the Act.
In Bechtel, the claimant was killed while driving home from work. The claimant was paid an additional $5.00 per day for travelling to his job site. The Court noted, however, that the employee worked at only one location and that the $5.00 per day did not constitute travelling expenses because they were paid whether an employee drove or ear pooled to work and were paid without consideration for the actual distance that an employee needed to travel to work.4 If we follow Bechtel, the Claimant’s differential of 49 cents per hour is paid to him whether or not he drives or carpools and, therefore, should not be considered a travel allowance either. The majority relies on the characterization of the 49 cents per hour in denying this Claimant disability benefits when he was clearly injured while furthering the Employer’s business.
In Rear, there was no formal employment contract. The claimant in Rear testified that he was paid $20 per day for travel expenses. The employer in Rear alleged that the $20 was for lodging, but that claimant chose to use it to travel to and from work instead. The Referee in Rear found that the claimant was furthering the employer’s business and that the nature of the employer’s business involved establishing work places at “various and sundry sites.” Using three factors, the Referee in Rear found that the monies were for travel expenses and thus the claimant fit within an exception to the “coming and going” rule. The three factors in Rear are:
(1) Was the employer required to provide transportation?
(2) Was the employer allowed to exercise control over the means of transportation chosen by individual employees?
(3) Did the allowance further the business of the employer?
On appeal, this court emphasized that it was manifest that the third factor was to be the focus in determining whether the receipt of money for travel expenses brings the employee within the course of his employment.
Despite the differences in the facts, the majority in the instant case seeks to settle the diverse results between Rear and Bechtel based on the Peer line of cases by following the reasoning of Peer and unnecessarily overruling Rear. Unfortunately, such a solution will only result in further confusion because it relies strictly on an employer’s travel payment policy or on the travel payment provisions of an agreement which was collectively bargained rather than on the legislated intent and statutory purpose expressed in the Act, for which protection the workers, in effect, have traded in their right to sue the employer at common law.
In accordance with §301(c) of the Act, 77 P.S. §411, a compensable injury of an employee occurs when the employee is actually engaged in furtherance of Employer’s business. Peer.
While the majority seeks to overrule Rear, in concluding that Claimant’s injuries are not compensable when Claimant was clearly and solely furthering the interests of the Employer, the majority has, in effect, overruled Peer.
As the facts in Rear, Peer and Bechtel evolved, each succeeding ease focused more and more on the varieties of travel expense policies and plans of the employer rather than emphasizing the complete picture of all the other factors that determine what furthers the Employer’s business, as clearly stated in Section 301(c) of the Act, 77 P.S. §441.
Resolution of the conflicts in Peer, Rear and Bechtel is equally accomplished under the Act when it is held that injuries sustained during travel which is primarily in furtherance of an employer’s business are compen-sable and that such a factual determination is best left to the factfinder taking into consideration that the method of travel compensation is only one factor in making such a determination.5
*1150Employer was found to have its place of business in New York State, and, having none within the union’s jurisdiction, Scranton was, thereby, designated as the “shop” under the terms of Section 9. Under the terms of Section 16, Employer was required to furnish (not just pay for) transportation from shop (Scranton) to job (Bradford) and return. This is simply unable to be contradicted. It is plain and clear on the face of the Agreement.
In this case, the facts clearly demonstrate that the WCJ properly found that the Claimant, in travelling to the job site, did so primarily for' the benefit of the Employer, not for himself and not for the union. WCJ concluded that this Section obligates Employer to provide transportation and, since Employer failed to do so, Claimant was fulfilling Employer’s obligation by providing his own vehicle.
The majority opinion reviewed Section 16 in conjunction with Section 17 and held that they were two separate provisions: Section 16 dealing with shop to job type travel and Section 17 where an employee is directed to report directly to the job site. The majority holds that because the Claimant reported directly to the job site, the provisions of Section 16 requiring Employer to provide transportation did not apply and that WCJ was incorrect in applying Section 16 to include transportation benefits under Rear. This conclusion is not apparent from the plain language of the CBA.
The only way that Section 16 (requiring the Employer to furnish transportation) is not applicable to this Claimant is if the job site is not within the jurisdiction of the union. Although CBA Section 17 provides that, “no travelling time shall be paid ... when workmen are ordered to report on the job,” Section 17 only applies to payment for travel-ling, while Section 16 not only applies to payment, but also to Employer’s additional obligation to furnish transportation if the job is within the union’s jurisdiction, as- well as paying travelling time, board, etc., but not to furnish transportation when the job is not within the jurisdiction.
Under the provisions of the CBA, Claimant’s hourly rate was $.49 per hour higher for working in Zone B (sixty miles beyond Courthouse Square in Scranton). Because this additional hourly rate was only paid for jobs worked outside the sixty mile radius of the courthouse, it was not payable to all employees who were travelling, as in Bechtel and Peer, infra, it was only a percentage of the full rate paid to journeymen travelling and should be considered the Employer’s “transportation” obligation under the first exception to the coming and going rule.
Most importantly, this apprentice was not able to turn down this job for a job closer to his home under the terms of the CBA without jeopardizing his career as a journeyman electrician which was within one year of completion.
Under Section 16 of the CBA, the employer is required to provide transportation. The Employer instead provided a mere $3.92/day (.49 per hour) which it bargained for, in order to relieve itself of the burden of providing transportation for the employees.
The majority of this Court has now permitted the Employer through the collective bargaining process to avoid compensating employees for injuries sustained in furtherance of its own business. In order to assure a lower paid labor force, the Employer only had to subscribe to a collective bargain for a differential of'only 49 cents per hour, which an apprentice had to accept at the risk of unemployment and loss of career. Accepting the travel allowance under this CBA furthers *1151the Employer’s business and Claimant should not be penalized for this.
Consequently, apprentices, such as Claimant, who were forced to travel two hundred miles daily in order to provide the employer with a competitive wage rate and who additionally were subject to being directed to various jobs, not by the union, but directly by the employer were not only travelling primarily for the benefit of the employer, but in doing so, were acting to farther the employer’s business with little apparent additional personal benefit to the apprentice for the time, risk and cost of travel other than an additional pay of $3.92 per day.
The Commonwealth Court in Bechtel and the majority in the present case failed to apply the three-factor analysis set forth in Kear to determine whether receipt of monies for travel expenses brings the employee within the course of his employment. These factors are not in conflict with either Peer or Bechtel, since they only outline criteria pertaining to the receipt of travel allowances, which is only one factor in determining whether travel meets the “coming and going rule.”
The Kear court emphasized that it was manifest that the third factor was to be the focus in determining whether the receipt of money for travel expenses brings the employee within the course of his employment.
By undertaking the long, arduous, hazardous ride to Bradford every day in the depths of winter, Claimant greatly furthered the business interest of the Employer. While the additional compensation to Claimant was of minimal benefit to Claimant, Employer realized a tremendous economic advantage. Since no apprentices resided in Bradford, Employer would have been forced to use higher paid journeymen who may or may not choose to accept employment at that time of year in that locale if the Local 81 apprentices had not been required to travel to Bradford to receive a much lower wage with only 49 cents per hour differential added for the time, effort and risk involved.
The instant case provides an excellent example of how the nature and incidents of travel, without regard to payment of travel expenses, was a special circumstance which directly farthered the interests of the Employer and, as a direct consequence of such travel, the Claimant is no longer an able bodied apprentice in the shadow of graduation with a future that would place him as a journeyman electrician, among the highest ranks of the building trades with respect to skill, education, training, compensation and benefits, but is now relegated to contemplating his dream from a wheelchair without the use and feeling of his lower body. Bradford County and its neighbors in the northern tier of Pennsylvania have legitimately earned a reputation for the most severe winters in Pennsylvania, of which this Court should take judicial notice. It is hard to imagine that Claimant chose to travel there in the dead of winter for an extra $3.92 per day and that Employer could have attracted other electricians there for such a pittance.
Far from being an “unusual circumstance” which would eviscerate the coming and going rule, the consistently hazardous road conditions from Scranton through the Pocono mountains, and the surrounding counties in Pennsylvania and New York State into the Bradford area are certainly special circumstances not comparable to the road conditions in the southeast and south central areas of Pennsylvania during those same months. The consistently severe winter weather conditions in certain areas of Pennsylvania are radically different from other areas and definitely are.special circumstances within the fourth exception to the coming and going rule which should be considered along with all the other factors, including, but not limited to, travel pay policies, etc., on a case by case basis as we did in Peer, Kear and Bechtel without searching for an easy answer based almost entirely on one factor. The reason is obvious. When one considers the innumerable variety of travel pay policies in collective bargaining agreements and the basis for their origination, it will only be a matter of time when various circumstances will cause numerous exceptions to also be made to the majority opinion which will ultimately lead to only lip service being paid to the true test of when the travel is in furtherance of the employer’s business. The major*1152ity opinion has already started such a departure.
The holding in these cases on travel should turn not on one very narrow factor, such as the characterization of a travel allowance, but on whether or not the facts as presented “further the interest of the Employer” as provided by the Act and stated in Rear. A worker’s compensation benefit should not be dependent upon private policies or agreements regarding travel, whether that policy is instituted by a CBA, an Inside Agreement or by a unilateral policy prepared solely by an employer. In collective bargaining negotiations, travel benefits and language setting forth travel pay conditions are too easily compromised and/or exchanged for other more important compensation or benefits, which have no relationship to the coming and going rule. Rear should be followed here, not overruled. Likewise, Peer and Bechtel need not be overruled, either. Rear, Peer and Bechtel were each decided on their facts in determining whether they were in furtherance of the Employer’s business interests. The majority has now enabled employers to collectively bargain away or unilaterally adopt policies to escape their legislatively mandated responsibilities under the Act. I would reverse the WCAB and affirm the decision of the WCJ to award benefits.
Judge SMITH joins this dissent.
. The Pennsylvania Workers' Compensation Act is the Act of June 2, 1915, P.L. 736, as amended, 77 P.S. §§1-1041.4; 2501-2626.
. The "Inside Agreement” was simply a separate collective bargaining agreement for IBEW members not working for a utility, e.g., power company. The parties to the Agreement were the IBEW’s Local 81 (in which Claimant was an apprentice for this job) and the Scranton Division of the Penn-Del Jersey Chapter of the National Electrical Contractors Association (NECA). Even though Employer is not a member of NECA, the Employer signed a Letter of Assent and was thereby entitled to be covered by the terms of the Inside Agreement. (R.R. at 41a-42a, N.T. 35-36).
. Bechtel Power Corp. v. Workmen's Compensation Appeal Board (Postlethwait), 167 Pa.Cmwlth. 544, 648 A.2d 1266 (Pa.Cmwlth.1994), alloc. denied, 540 Pa. 585, 655 A.2d 516 (1995).
. Compensation benefits were denied on the grounds that the employee was outside the course and scope of his employment at the time of his injuries.
. In this case, the CBA contains the following *1150provisions relating to travel pay:
Section 9 When the Employer has no permanent shop located in the jurisdiction of the Union, then under such circumstances Scranton shall be considered the city in which the shop is located.
Section 16 The employer shall pay for traveling time and furnish transportation from shop to job, job to job, and job to shop, within the jurisdiction of the Union. On work outside of the jurisdiction of the Union, the Employer shall furnish transportation, board, and all necessary expenses. (Emphasis added.)
Section 17 No traveling time shall be paid before or after working hours to workmen for traveling to or from any job in the jurisdiction of the Union where workmen are ordered to report on the job.