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What road safety issue concerns you most?
The RACV recently posted a poll on X (the website formerly known as Twitter) inviting users to vote on which road safety issue most concerns them, from a selection of four choices: Speeding, Drivers using phones, Tailgating and Potholes.
‘Drivers using phones’ was overwhelmingly the safety issue concerning respondents most, with 42.6 per cent of the votes cast.
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Victoria introduced updated driver distraction laws on March 31 last year, as well as rolling out AI-enabled mobile phone and seatbelt camera detection systems to assist with enforcing the new laws.
The February 2024 RACV poll was cast partly in response to the Victorian Government revealing that over 17 million dollars in fines were issued to drivers detected by cameras breaching the new distracted driving rules during the first six months of enforcement.
The mobile phone and seatbelt camera detection systems were implemented as part of the Victorian Road Safety Strategy 2021-2030 at cost of $33.7 million. They captured 30,231 distracted drivers from 1 July to 30 December 2023, with drivers facing penalties of four demerit points and a fine of $577.
What are the Victorian road rules for fully licensed drivers and motorcyclists using portable devices?
- Don’t touch your unmounted or wearable device while you’re driving or riding – this includes cars, motorbikes, bicycles, e-scooters and even rollerblades.
- Drivers may briefly touch a mounted device or inbuilt system for functions such as music and navigation, provided they are not entering text, scrolling, or viewing images, social media, websites, or videos.
- For wearable devices such as smart watches, you can’t touch the device while driving or riding. You can only use voice controls to initiate, accept or reject audio calls, play, or stream audio materials, or adjust volume levels.
- For mobile phones and tablets, the mounting must be commercially designed and manufactured for that purpose, and the device must be secured in the mounting.
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Victoria’s peak motoring body supports distracted driver laws
James Williams, Head of Policy at the RACV said distracted driving laws aim to keep road users safe, and have been implemented in response to vehicle features and technologies capable of distracting drivers.
“The RACV poll highlights that Victorians are still noticing people using their phones or devices while driving and they have highlighted it as their top safety concern on our roads,” Mr Williams said.
“Distracted driving is a major contributor to road crashes and we all need to do our part and make sure we put our devices away and concentrate on driving safely.
“This poll and the data from distracted driver cameras, highlights that we still need to focus on educating drivers about this rule – which, put simply, generally means don’t touch your unmounted or wearable device while you’re driving or sitting in traffic.”
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