Victoria to adopt new road laws from today
November 9, 2009 by Matt Brogan
New Victorian road rules begin today, bringing Victoria more closely in line with the rest of the country. The rules fall under VicRoads’ Arrive Alive 2008-2017 strategy which aims to make roads safer and reduce the number of deaths and serious injuries.
These are some of the new regulations and a few of the penalties that come with them:
Mobile phones
- Holding a phone – which includes sitting it on your lap – is prohibited.
- You may only make or receive phone calls or use the audio functions on the phone if:
- the phone is secured in a commercially designed holder fixed to the vehicle, or
- it can be operated by the driver without touching any part of the phone.
- All other functions (eg texting, emailing, etc) are prohibited.
VicRoads says your chance of being involved in a crash increases by four times when using your phone and as much as 23 times when texting. Drivers will be fined $234 and three demerit points for phone-related infringements.
Visual display units (eg GPSs)
- Navigation devices must be an integrated part of the vehicle design or be secured in a commercially designed holder fixed to the vehicle.
Trams
- You must stop before the rear of a stopped tram at a tram stop. Once pedestrians have left the road and the tram doors are closed you may pass the tram at no more than 10km/h ($292 fine + demerit points).
- You may not stop or park within 20m of a tram stop unless signs indicate otherwise ($117 fine).
- Driving in tramlines with:
- Broken yellow lines – you may drive on the tram tracks as long as you don’t delay the tram
- Single continuous yellow line – you may drive in the tram lane for 50m to enter or leave the road
- Double continuous yellow lines – you may not drive in a tramway.
Painted lines
- You may not overtake, change lanes or U-turn over a single continuous centre line or over a single continuous line to the left of a broken line.
- You may drive over a single continuous line if you are entering or leaving the road.
- You may only drive over a painted island surrounded by a single continuous line if you are entering or leaving the road, or entering a turning lane immediately after the island ($234 fine + demerit points).
Parking
- When moving a parked vehicle to another parking spot you must move the vehicle off the length of road or out of the area to which the parking sign applies.
- When parking opposite double or single continuous lines you must leave three metres clear between the parked car and the dividing line ($70 fine).
Other changes include new rules about seatbelts, child restraints and others for motorcyclists and pedestrians. The full list of changes can be found at the VicRoads website: http://www.roadrules.vicroads.vic.gov.au/home.php.
While the changes do bring Victoria’s rules more closely in line with other states and territories, some differences still remain and local regulations should always be checked before setting off.
By Tim Beissmann (with VicRoads)
Print it: 
The thing that’s going to catch most people is the continuous white line rules.
EG – if someone is reverse parking and you drive around them, crossing a white line – you are done. Even if there is nothing coming the other way.
EG2 – banning U-turns over a white line means vastly reduced u-turn locations.
EG3 – a vehicle in front at an intersection indicates a turn at the last minute – you move left or right to go straight ahead – you’ve crossed a white line. Move to the cashier’s queue.
If you look at the single white lines, you may find that they are in areas that “to the letter of the law” you are actually not legal to do a U-Turn…Ie you don’t have clear visibility for the required distance……
As to gettting around another vehicle…. slow down take life at a slightly more relaxed pace, listen to the tunes on the stereo and lower your stress level. THe worst that will happen is you may be 5 minutes late for where you are going
Too simplistic, fella.
Toorak Road has visibility extending to 1k each way (in places). It has a single continuous white line the wole way.
Don’t try and feed me the “they’re right” mantra.
So how long will it take to retest all existing drivers? Substantial changes like these aren’t trivial and most people won’t have a clue when they get done.
Also, does a cup holder count as a commercially designed mount when using the audio function of a phone?
Reckless,
EG2 “vastly reduced u-turn locations” also means vastly improved safety for everone if some of the U-turns I have seen are stamped out.
EG3 Other states dont have solid lines leading into intersections, therefore no problem, however I think the solid line at these point is a good thing – this needs more work methinks.
Supercujo, Cupholder? NO! Now if you had a “commercially designed” adaptor that fitted nicely into that cupholder….. Could be a market for someone there.
I’m sick of the Government treating us like the ’special students’ who have to be guided through every thing. Accidents happen, fact of life but these changes (with the exception of no texting/email) are ridiculous. If you can drive alone in Victoria you are legally an adult. Let people take responsibility for themselves. I fail to see how these changes are going to vastly improve road saftey. More likely than not they are going to raise a whole lot of revenue whilst cops fine motorists who are unaware of the changes like they did in NSW, fining P-Platers for having there plates inside of the car before the RTA had even distributed the letters explaining the change.
we have to have out p plates outside??? or is that only in NSW?
Only NSW
I just remember people getting fined for it before they had even received the notice of change from the RTA
I have a huge problem with the Tram guidelines, as basically, we will be stuck behind them the entire length of a roads such as Sydney Road, High Street, Toorak Road etc, where there isn’t enough room between the parked cars and the tram. The only way to pass them at the moment is to wait for the tram doors to close and hit the gas “off like a rocket” style. If we can’t exceed 10km/hr, then there is no way we will ever get past these things, and we be made to stop every 250metres, and travel at 25km/hr… And who is going to enforce the law? Is the tram driver going to report us to police, or will it be up to the police to catch us? This is just road rage waiting to happen!!
agree david,
world’s stupid’s new road rule.only in vic ah.hope i don’t get pinged on my trip to see tiger…
Unfortunately Tram drivers have Police Powers – all they have to do is take your number, and you’re done.
this one time a truck turned into my lane and didn’t see me so i had to drive onto the island. what am i suppose to do now? just let him hit me and let the accident happen? also can if my phone in in a secure place can i poke it with a stick (i’m not touching it) i just text at stop signs and red lights, plus i can text without looking anyways
Texting whilst at the wheel of any vehicle, unless safely parked, is illegal (in all states too I think).
I can see the Vics getting upset at a few of these, but all most of it really is doing is catching up with the rest of the country and the National road rules.
BTW the guy in the photo wouldn’t be breaking the law, ’cause he is parked.
parked or blithely unaware of where’s he’s headed?
anyone caught texting should lose their license immediately
There are exceptions to these rules, where if you can cross over islands or continued lines to avoid an accident it is fine, read the official VicRoads website.
Texting whithout looking does not mean you are 100% focused on the road. You lose some of your concentration in remembering which keys to press, how many times to press them, what your msg says, etc etc. Then lost in concentration could mean you lose complete sight of blind spots, and peripheral vision.
The guy in the photo appears to be driving a left hand drive car! Read his text message – it says that he is in the car park.
LOL how does this make it safer… if they really care about making the roads safe the cops would go to places where they have illegal burnouts and drags every weekend.. but its the hoons they should be targeting and taking away there licenses and cars for a 5 year period.. now that tuff great laws..
I’d rather they put more patrol cars on the road to make people think a bit more about what they do on the road.
Also, targeting so-called ‘hoons’ who do burnouts or street drags in some remote areas away from housing or main roads will do stuff all to improve the road toll.
I’d would like to see every driver have to resit their road rules test every 5 years when their licence is renewed. And then a bunch of people each year are randomly selected to redo their drivers licence test. I see so many people on a daily basis who have no clue on most road rules.
Don’t just retest old folk or P platers, restest everyone. We all have a responsibility to know the road rules.
The restriction on car navigation equipment seems harsh; after all, GPS navigators added text-to-speech to minimize the amount of time people need to spend looking at their navigators while driving, did they not?
Let personal responsibility dictate our actions, not laws.
Supercujo,
I’m inclined to agree with you about licence retesting.
Though I don’t think that simply re-sitting the test is sufficient.
Yes this does indicate wether you have and adequate knowledge of the rules of the road, but does not deal with the deeper issue of wether or not you actually have the ability, maturity or psychological profile to even be behind the wheel.
In the thirty or so years I have been using the roads driving cars, trucks and motor cycles it is so often the ‘Moron Factor’ that leads to accidents. Unfortunately and too often it is not the moron who suffers.
We life in a society filled with distraction and our cars are no exception. Stereos, mobile phones, GPS devices, in-car entertainment, not to mention children, chatty friends and the fact we’re running late or have just been chewed out by the wife/boss.
Being in control of a tonne or more of metal, even a low speeds requires concentration, awareness, consideration and skill. Concentration and awareness are dependant upon one’s ability to remain focused on the job at hand, consideration of others well that should be peoples general treatment of each other on or of the road, and skill is or at least should be an integral part of a drivers training. Not just an ability to get a minimum number of questions correct and a vague ability to steer a vehicle.
What to do in any emergency situation, how does a car handle when it loses traction, when, where and how to accelerate through a corner. When do you accelerate through a situation and when do you slow down and allow other traffic to pass you.
Of course there are advanced driver training courses one can attend to further one’s skill unfortunately even after an incident very few motorists consider that this may be a good idea.
Indeed within the current learner driver structure, students are not shown even the most basic of these ‘advanced skills’ because it is assumed you should be driving in such away that you do not loose control of the vehicle. Total bunkum! Black ice, light rain, someone ahead with a leaky sump – any of which could find you losing control of the vehicle through no fault of your own.
Add to this the flagrant disregard so many motorists have to road laws other than the obvious ones under discusssion here.
Failure to indicate, driving in the right hand lane ( and how often do we see learner drivers with a family member at their side blithely tootling along in the right lane at 60k in an 80k zone. Or worse yet doing the same on the freeway), speeding through school zones or perhaps my pet hate, entering an intersection that you are unable to proceed through!
If the government really wanted to increase its revenue via fines for road abuse they’d set up speed cameras in every school zone and certainly one to catch the the hundreds of drivers every morning who choke the intersection of Auburn and Toorak roads.
Mandatory testing every three years – skill, road knowledge and psychological profile
Increase licence fees and registration so only people who really need to use cars would and use this money to build a viable functioning public transport system.
Driving is a privilege not a right and we need to treat it this way.
Supercujo,
I’m inclined to agree with you about licence retesting.
Though I don’t think that simply re-sitting the test is sufficient.
Yes this does indicate wether you have and adequate knowledge of the rules of the road, but does not deal with the deeper issue of wether or not you actually have the ability, maturity or psychological profile to even be behind the wheel.
In the thirty or so years I have been using the roads driving cars, trucks and motor cycles it is so often the ‘Moron Factor’ that leads to accidents. Unfortunately and too often it is not the moron who suffers.
We life in a society filled with distraction and our cars are no exception. Stereos, mobile phones, GPS devices, in-car entertainment, not to mention children, chatty friends and the fact we’re running late or have just been chewed out by the wife/boss.
Being in control of a tonne or more of metal, even a low speeds requires concentration, awareness, consideration and skill. Concentration and awareness are dependant upon one’s ability to remain focused on the job at hand, consideration of others well that should be peoples general treatment of each other on or of the road, and skill is or at least should be an integral part of a drivers training. Not just an ability to get a minimum number of questions correct and a vague ability to steer a vehicle.
What to do in any emergency situation, how does a car handle when it loses traction, when, where and how to accelerate through a corner. When do you accelerate through a situation and when do you slow down and allow other traffic to pass you.
Of course there are advanced driver training courses one can attend to further one’s skill unfortunately even after an incident very few motorists consider that this may be a good idea.
Indeed within the current learner driver structure, students are not shown even the most basic of these ‘advanced skills’ because it is assumed you should be driving in such away that you do not loose control of the vehicle. Total bunkum! Black ice, light rain, someone ahead with a leaky sump – any of which could find you losing control of the vehicle through no fault of your own.
Add to this the flagrant disregard so many motorists have to road laws other than the obvious ones under discusssion here.
Failure to indicate, driving in the right hand lane ( and how often do we see learner drivers with a family member at their side blithely tootling along in the right lane at 60k in an 80k zone. Or worse yet doing the same on the freeway), speeding through school zones or perhaps my pet hate, entering an intersection that you are unable to proceed through!
If the government really wanted to increase its revenue via fines for road abuse they’d set up speed cameras in every school zone and certainly one to catch the the hundreds of drivers every morning who choke the intersection of Auburn and Toorak roads.
Mandatory testing every three years – skill, road knowledge and psychological profile
Increase licence fees and registration so only people who really need to use cars would and use this money to build a viable functioning public transport system.
Driving is a privilege not a right and we need to treat it this way.
Oh one last thing.
To Mr Beissman, there is no full stop at the end of http://www.roadrules.vicroads.vic.gov.au/home.php. in the html link you have supplied. This causes the link to return a 404, page not found error.
The correct link is
http://www.roadrules.vicroads.vic.gov.au/home.php
i recently recieved an infringement notice for driving in a bike lane ,when overtaking on the inside of a lane when a vehicle in front was doing a right hand turn is anyone up to date on this law ?