Australia's most obscure road rules

After decades of work, in 1999 the first Australian Road Rules were published in an effort to bring all the states and territories in line with one set of road transport laws.

The problem is that while road rules were then cut from the same cloth, local state/territory bureaucrats couldn’t help but whip out the knitting needles and add their own local embroidery.

For example, one road rule enshrined in the national Australian Road Rules is that you can’t have any part of your body projecting out of the vehicle -- so no waving out of the sunroof or a window for example, or you’ll cop a fine.

However, don’t think that sticking your arm out of the window is illegal at all times.

While you might think that hand signals went out in the 1950s, if your vehicle was built without stop or indicator lights or your more modern vehicle’s stop lights or indicators have failed or are not clearly visible in Queensland, NSW, Victoria, SA and NT, you’re free to use hand signals to indicate a right turn or if you’re stopping.

WA allows hand signals, but only if you’re driving an old-timer built without stop or indicator lights.

You might think car sharing is a recent thing, but back in the early 1990s an unsanctioned form of it was running hot with a certain sub-set of society.

If such coves couldn’t find a cab to get home from the pub late at night, they’d pull out a screwdriver and break into just about any car they wanted, hot-wire the ignition and have a ride home. Cars back then were easy to break into and steal.

To try to help put a stop to this, the governments of Queensland, NSW and Victoria instituted a road rule that said that if you’re more than three metres away from your vehicle, you cannot leave the keys in the ignition, the parking brake inactive, the vehicle unlocked or have windows completely open, unless a person aged 16 or over is still in the car. If there are under-16s in the car, you can move up to three metres but must remove the key from the ignition.

Better keep a tape measure handy, not only to verify where your three-metre boundary is, but also to measure the window gap. In Queensland, you can leave windows open 5cm, in NSW and Victoria it’s 2cm.

Of course, about the same time it became an Australian Design Rule for all vehicles to have an ignition immobiliser fitted, making the vehicle all but impossible to steal. Now if a thief wants to steal your car, they have to ask you for the key and usually they are not very polite about it.

So you’re in NSW and taking a freshly filled LPG bottle home for a Barbie. If you’re carrying flammable, explosive or dangerous goods in your vehicle, then you’re required to come to a stop at least three metres before a train crossing even if there’s no barrier down or stop sign.

If you’re parallel-parked on the side of the road or on the median strip and are about to join a line of traffic, what’s thought of as the done thing of only indicating as you’re moving into the gap is actually illegal in Queensland, NSW, Victoria, SA and WA.

You’re supposed to indicate for five seconds before joining the road, never mind the bunch of drivers who hesitate, wondering if you’re just going to launch into their road space.

We all know about speed limits but one Tasmanian speed limit you might not know is that while turning left or right at an intersection with traffic lights, you are not to go faster than 20km/h.

Left the bicycle carrier bolted on the back of your vehicle without bikes on it in Victoria? Yep, that’s illegal.

If your number plate is obscured by the bicycle carrier, don’t think you’re doing the right thing by fashioning a plate out of cardboard and sticking it on the back so it can be seen. It’s illegal to make your own number plate.

In Queensland, NSW, the ACT, SA and Tasmania you have to buy an official, smaller plate with your vehicle’s registration number to put on the rack or wherever it can be seen, while in Victoria you either need to buy a plate like the other states or you can use the vehicle’s rear number plate (which is illegal in the other states). The plate has to illuminated in poor light conditions too.