For most, the road rules you remember best are the ones that got you through the mandatory driving tests, beyond which rested a probationary license. Oh, and the ones a police officer has fined you for violating since acquiring said license. But no one’s really up to speed on every road rule in existence and certainly not the specific aberrations between Australian states.
The Sydney Morning Herald has an article over in the Drive section that covers some of the major differences in road rules between NSW and Victoria and highlights the stranger and less-known regulations.
Apparently, you can be fined $165 in NSW for splashing mud on a bus, but it’s perfectly OK to do the same in Victoria. If you regularly signal your street-bound departures with a push of the horn and a wave of the arm, you could be up for six demerit points and $898 in fines in NSW, while the most you’d cop in Victoria is zero demerit points and $282.
As you’d expect, phone usage is mentioned. Again, NSW and Victoria have varying opinions on what is and isn’t kosher:
If your car is parked legally and safely off the road (ie: not waiting at the lights or in slow-moving traffic) but the engine is running, you’re OK to use the phone in NSW.
But in Victoria, if you’re parked legally and safely off the road and the engine is still running — and you’re in the driver’s seat — that’s still a ticket. In Victoria the engine must be off otherwise you are “in charge of a motor vehicle”.
The SMH piece features plenty more comparisons, which you can read about at the link below.
The road rules you didn’t know [Sydney Morning Herald]
This story has been updated since its original publication.
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