Police enforcement

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Key insights

In fatal road crashes where risky behaviours were a factor, not using a seatbelt was the highest contributor to deaths (over 15% of fatal crashes in 2022). Other risky road behaviours include drink driving, drug driving and unlicensed driving.

In 2022 there were: 

• 58,935 positive random breath tests from a total of 10.6 million tests (0.6% positive rate)
• 46,868 positive roadside drug tests from a total of around 460,000 tests (10% positive rate)
• around 4.6 million speeding fines issued: 490,898 were police issued (11%) and 4,060,444 were camera issued (89%)
• around 362,000 mobile phone fines issued: 49,397 were police issued (14%) and 312,945 were camera issued (86%) 
• around 77,000 seatbelt fines issued: 25,343 were police issued (33%) and 52,081 were camera issued (67%) 

Risky road behaviour

Over the 8 years to 2022, the proportions of fatal crashes involving each major risky road behaviour have been converging. Wearing no seatbelt remains the greatest risk factor in fatal crashes. In 2015, 17% of fatal crashes involved no seatbelts, but by 2022 this number decreased to 15%. In 2015, around 9% of fatal crashes involved unlicensed driving and driving under the influence of drugs, but both of these factors increased to 12% of fatal crashes by 2022. At the same time fatal crashes involving drink-driving remained relatively stable at 13% by 2022. 

Drink driving

Nationally, the rate of positive results from drink driving tests has declined since 2020, from 0.7% positive Random Breath Tests (RBT) in 2020 to 0.6% in 2022. This has coincided with a steady increase in the number of tests conducted, which is increasing towards levels seen prior to 2020. 

Since the number of roadside breath tests conducted can be influenced by the population size of each state and territory, we can standardise it using the count of licence holders. Western Australia conducted 11,221 roadside breath tests for every 10,000 licence holders in 2022, nearly double that of the next highest, New South Wales (6,419 breath tests per 10,000 licence holders).  

Driving under the influence of drugs  

In a pattern similar to that seen in drink-driving offences, the rate of positive tests for driving under the influence of drugs has declined from a high of 14.5% in 2020 to 10.2% in 2022. This is still significantly higher than the rate of positive tests seen prior to 2013. The number of tests also remains relatively high compared to a decade ago.   

For every 10,000 licence holders, South Australia reported 488 positive drug tests in 2022, followed by Victoria with 337 and Western Australia with 225 positive tests.  

Speeding

Nationally, speeding fines have continued to increase over the past few years, with a total of 4.6 million fines reported in 2022. The majority of speeding fines were camera-issued (4,060,444 or 89%), while the remainder were police-issued (490,898 or 11%).  

The states which issued the most speeding fines were:

• New South Wales police issued 164,275 speeding fines (33% of all police-issued fines) and 1,053,321 speeding fines were issued by cameras (26% of all camera-issued fines)
• Victoria police issued 122,929 speeding fines (25% of all police-issued fines) and 1,255,302 speeding fines were issued by cameras (31% of all camera-issued fines).  

The chart below reports on data for all states and territories except for the Australian Capital Territory as data was unavailable.  

Prior to 2016 we did not collect police-issued speeding fines from each state and territory so only camera-issued fines are shown.  

Western Australia reported the highest rate of speeding fines at 4,241 fines per 10,000 licence holders.  

Mobile phone non-compliance

The total number of mobile phone non-compliance fines has recently increased, mainly driven by camera enforcement in New South Wales from 2020, and in Queensland from 2021. This additional source of reporting has resulted in more offences being captured in 2022, mainly from New South Wales (194,793 fines or 62% of all camera fines) and Queensland (118,152 or 38% of all camera fines). 

Since they started capturing offences with cameras, New South Wales and Queensland have reported far higher numbers of fines per 10,000 licence holders: in 2022, New South Wales reported 348 fines per 10,000 licence holders, closely followed by Queensland at 306 fines per 10,000 licence holders.  

Seatbelt non-compliance

In 2022 there were 77,424 reported instances of seatbelt non-compliance, composed of 52,081 fines detected using cameras and 25,343 fines from police. The increase of camera-reported seatbelt noncompliance coincides with the reporting of camera-issued fines in Queensland since 2021. In 2021 there were 5,346 camera-issued fines (18% of all fines), increasing to 52,079 camera-issued fines in 2022 (67% of all fines).  

We have data on seatbelt non-compliance available in most states from 2017, with the majority of reported fines being police-issued. Counts of camera-issued fines reflect those issued in Queensland only during 2021 and 2022.  

With Queensland capturing more offences with cameras, seatbelt non-compliance rose to 141 fines per 10,000 licence holders in 2022.  

About the data

The data sources used on this page are:

1. National Road Safety Research and Reporting Database (Chart 1)
2. Police Enforcement data (remaining charts)
   • NSW Police Force
   • Victoria Police
   • Queensland Police Service
   • South Australia Police Force
   • Western Australia Police Force
   • Tasmania Police Force
   • North Territory Police Force
   • Australian Federal Police
3. Annual drivers licence data is sourced from the Australian Infrastructure and Transport Statistics Yearbook. (Opens in a new tab/window)

Definitions

Risky road use

Includes actions that are explicitly illegal, including speeding, drink or drug driving, illegal mobile phone use, not wearing a seatbelt, running a red light, unlicensed driving, and ‘hoon driving’. 

Per 10,000 licence holders

The number of offences in police enforcement data can be influenced by the population of drivers in each state and territory. Standardising the number of offences by expressing it as a count per 10,000 licence holders allows us to describe the rates of non-compliance within each state and territory.  

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Police enforcement data(Opens in a new tab/window)

Limitations

We work with police agencies in each state and territory to report on police enforcement but there are a number of limitations to the data:

1. Some police agencies only collect a part of police enforcement data. Some states collect both police and camera-issued fines, but some may have different government agencies collecting camera-issued fines. For example, ACT Roads collects data on seatbelt fines detected by camera instead of ACT Police.  
2. Not all states and territories who own police enforcement data share their data publicly, which makes it difficult to get a complete and accurate picture of national police enforcement. For example, NSW Police collects police-issued fines, but camera fines are publicly available and collected by NSW Revenue.