Part 21of the Road Rules contains a number of provisions to put certain legal issues beyond doubt. They enable the language and concepts in the Road Rules to be expressed more simply.

Part 21 of the Road Rules contains a number of provisions to put certain legal issues beyond doubt. They enable the language and concepts in the Road Rules to be expressed more simply.

Other road laws

The Road Rules do not provide all the rules to be followed by road users. Other rules applying to road users are to be found in other laws. For example, other laws deal with drink-driving. Some of these other rules are indicated by notes in the Road Rules.

Penalties and penalty units

The penalty set out at the foot of a Road Rule specifies the maximum fine that a court can impose on a person who is convicted of an offence against that Rule. Fines are set in penalty units. The dollar amount of penalty units is fixed annually under the Monetary Units Act 2004. A penalty fixed by Road Rules can be converted to a dollar amount by multiplying the current value of a penalty unit by the number of units specified in the penalty provision, then rounding to the nearest dollar.

Parking and traffic infringements

Parking infringement notices and traffic infringement notices may be issued instead of court fines for some offences. These are listed in Schedules 6 and 7 to the Road Safety (General) Regulations 2019.

Demerit points

The Secretary keeps a Demerits Register under section 35 of the Road Safety Act 1986. The driver licence or permit of a person may be suspended in accordance with that Act if too many demerit points are incurred within a given period.

The Road Safety (Drivers) Regulations 2019 prescribe the circumstances in which demerit points are incurred and the number of points to be incurred.