A roadside survey of unlicensed driving in Queensland

Unlicensed driving remains a serious problem in many jurisdictions, and while it does not play a direct causative role in road crashes, it undermines driver licensing systems and is linked to other high risk driving behaviours. Roadside licence check surveys represent the most direct means of estimating the prevalence of unlicensed driving. The current study involved the Queensland Police Service (QPS) checking the licences of 3,112 drivers intercepted at random breath testing operations across Queensland between February and April 2010. Data was matched with official licensing records from Transport and Main Roads (TMR) via the drivers’ licence number. In total, 2,914 (93.6 per cent) records were matched, with the majority of the 198 unmatched cases representing international or interstate licence holders (n = 156), leaving 42 unknown cases. Among the drivers intercepted at the roadside, 20 (0.6 per cent) were identified as being unlicensed at the time, while a further 11 (0.4 per cent) were driving unaccompanied on a Learner Licence. However, the examination of TMR licensing records revealed that an additional 9 individuals (0.3 per cent) had a current licence sanction but were not identified as unlicensed by QPS. Thus, in total 29 of the drivers were unlicensed at the time, representing 0.9 per cent of all the drivers intercepted and 1 per cent of those for whom their licence records could be checked. This is considerably lower than the involvement of unlicensed drivers in fatal and serious injury crashes in Queensland, which is consistent with other research confirming the increased crash risk of the group. However, the number of unmatched records suggest that it is possible the on-road survey may have under-estimated the prevalence of unlicensed driving, so further development of the survey method is recommended.

• Record URL:
  http://acrs.org.au/publications/conference-papers/database/
• Authors:
  • Watson, B
  • Armstrong, K
  • Watson, A
  • Wilson, A
  • Livingstone, K
  • Sultana, K
  • O'DONNELL, L
• Conference:
  • Australasian Road Safety Research, Policing and Education Conference, 2011, Perth, Western Australia, Australia
• Publication Date: 2011-11

Language

• English

Media Info

• Pagination: 11p
• Monograph Title: Driving research, policy and action towards zero deaths and injuries: Australasian Road Safety Research, Policing and Education Conference, 2011, Perth Convention Exhibition Centre, Perth, Western Australia, 6-9 November

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Behavior; Driver licenses; Drivers; Driving without a license; Field studies; Risk taking; Roadside
• Uncontrolled Terms: Safe systems (road users)
• Geographic Terms: Australia; Queensland
• ATRI Terms: Driver behaviour; Field study; Risk taking; Roadside; Unlicensed driver
• ITRD Terms: 6226: In situ
• Subject Areas: Highways; Safety and Human Factors; I83: Accidents and the Human Factor;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01381509
• Record Type: Publication
• Source Agency: ARRB
• Files: ATRI
• Created Date: Aug 22 2012 12:14PM