There are new laws coming into effect as of midnight tonight (Tuesday, September 1st) which may have you thinking twice about using, touching or even looking at your mobile phone while driving ever again. These new penalties are some of the toughest in Australia to deter drivers from mobile use, which has been proven to put themselves and other road users at risk. According to the Road Safety Commission, “The State Government has increased penalties for illegal mobile phone use while driving, riding, or cycling to reduce road trauma due to driver distraction and inattention”, and cited “Inattention as a factor in fatalities in WA” which has significantly increased in recent years, with 31 fatalities (19%) recorded in inattention related crashes in 2019. This was a 48% increase compared to the preceding five-year average of 21. As these new laws change the way we will interact with our phones while driving and can be hard to understand, we have made it easy with this list of what you can and can’t do.”
This is what you need to know!
You still can: Touch a mobile phone that is securely mounted to the vehicle or bicycle to accept or end a phone call. Any other action will result in an infringement.
You can’t: Touch your phone to make a voice call or create, send or look at a text message, video message, email or similar communication, even when the phone is secured in a mounting or can be operated without touching it.
Any drivers caught holding or touching their phone to make a voice call will receive an increased penalty of a $500 infringement and three demerit points and an even higher penalty of a $1000 and four demerit points who create or view a text or video, use video chat, use other function or app on their phone that can result in a high level of driver distraction.
Yes, there are still amendments to these new law changes for drivers of on-demand transport vehicles. These provide allowances to touch a phone securely mounted to the vehicle to accept, confirm the start of, or decline a job ONLY. However, this does not apply if they are travelling in a school zone (during the school zone activated period), on the freeway, on a road with a speed limit of 80km/h or more or if they are in a SLOMO or slow down, move over situation, where a vehicle must slow down to 40km/h to pass an emergency response vehicle with lights activated parked on the side of the road. Drivers of on-demand transport vehicles must NOT touch the phone to use any other function on the phone, including other actions within their dispatch app.