Driver distraction is dangerous. Many of the current activities to address the issue in Australia and New Zealand are centred around mobile phone use. However, there are other significant distractions for drivers and driver distraction is more than just a behavioural issue.
Driver distraction occurs because of a complex interaction of interrelated elements within the road traffic system, as well as social and psychological issues beyond the road traffic system. This Austroads project takes an in-depth and nuanced perspective focusing on managing different aspects of driver distraction.
This page offers comprehensive information on Austroads’ efforts to combat distracted driving. This work is done under the Road Safety and Design Program.
How the Roadmap Emerged
In 2019, the Queensland Department of Transport and Main Roads (TMR), together with the Australian Government, published the National Roadmap on Driver Distraction. It drew on extensive ecosystem engagement, including the 2019 National Summit on Driver Distraction, and set out strategies to address distraction as a system interaction problem rather than a purely behavioural issue.
Key ideas from the Roadmap included safer interaction design, the adoption of mitigation technologies, workplace responsibilities, stronger compliance and behaviour change—implemented through collaborative national effort.
Translating Strategy into Early Implementation
The Roadmap’s implementation became a commitment under Australia’s National Road Safety Strategy 2021–2030. Since the publication of the Roadmap, there have been a number of developments in the area, described below.
Austroads commissioned the SAG6417 project, and published the following guidelines to help operationalise early actions, convene stakeholders and commission targeted guidance aligned to the Roadmap.
- Driver Distraction Roadmap Implementation Guide (Austroads 2024).
- Guideline for Driver Distraction Data Collection (Austroads 2026)
Austroads commissioned work to establish a national definition of driver distraction and to harmonise crash and infringement data collection so jurisdictions can more reliably identify and code distraction. Guidance also supports police and crash investigators in recognising the likelihood of distraction as a contributing factor. These were among the Roadmap’s top priorities and are now complete. - Guideline for Human Factors Integration in Road Transport (Austroads 2026)
Austroads supported development of a guideline that embeds Human Factors Integration (HFI) into transport system design and operation, helping practitioners reduce cognitive and physical load on drivers through user‑centred engineering processes. - Guideline for Incorporating Human Factors in Human Machine Interface (Austroads 2026)
Companion guidance addresses in‑vehicle interface design so that essential functions can be operated safely and intuitively, with minimal visual and cognitive demand. These directions align with international moves to evaluate HMI and driver state monitoring more rigorously (e.g., Euro NCAP’s 2026 protocols).
Austroads has now completed its program of work on driver distraction. The guidance, tools and priorities developed under the Roadmap provide a foundation for others to adopt, extend and embed within their own policies, standards and operational practice.
- The Australian Automobile Association has funded work to develop a distraction management systems model, and assess distraction of in-vehicle control panels.
- State government agencies are rolling out automated mobile phone enforcement systems.
- The Australian Government is coordinating international work to develop regulations to address driver drowsiness and distraction.
- A EuroNCAP project that will integrate driver distraction management into their safety assessment protocols.
- A United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) project that is looking at regulations which address how distraction managing technology is managed within vehicles.
- In-vehicle and smartphone technology that limit driver distraction, such as restricting incoming text messages and calls while the vehicle is in motion.
- Camera-based driver monitoring systems that track driver distraction, alerting the driver if they are detected to be looking away from the road for an extended period of time.
- Automated enforcement systems that monitor driver use of mobile phones, leading to fines and prosecution for drivers who fail to comply with handheld mobile phone use laws.
- Crash avoidance technology in vehicles that alert distracted drivers to the risk of crashing, and intervene with momentary braking or steering to avoid or mitigate crashes.
Gershon P, Zuby D, Reagan I, Schmidt S, Lenné M, Fitch G and Hernandez M (2023) How Technology Can Help Reduce Driver Distraction, National Distracted Driving Coalition (NDDC).
Issues and opportunities
Issues that inhibit efforts to address driver distraction include:
- Efforts to manage driver distraction must go beyond strategies that address the safe use of mobile phones when driving.
- It is difficult to detect the extent to which distraction is a crash factor due to inconsistent and fragmented data, data collection methods, and evaluations on whether current interventions are effective.
- The lack of evaluation in comparison with other human factor issues (such as speeding and drink driving) means fewer resources are allocated to addressing driver distraction.
- The rise of nomophobia – a psychological condition when people have a fear of being detached from mobile phone connectivity – reflects driver resistance to time away from mobile phone use and conflicts with driver distraction management efforts.
- Some businesses contributing to distraction, such as drive through services, lack commercial or legal motivation to reduce their impact, while others such as roadside advertisers face inconsistencies in approval standards.
- Vehicle operators, especially in commercial or mixed roles, are not required to manage distraction under current accreditation, workplace health and safety, or liability laws.
- Consumers demand in-vehicle connectivity features.
- There are gaps in safety governance, accountability, legislation and enforcement.
- Optimism bias leads drivers to underestimate crash risk while using mobile devices.
Strategic opportunities for managing driver distraction include:
- Government agencies can implement automated enforcement and technology-neutral laws.
- The ongoing revision of heavy vehicle national law presents a chance to begin embedding driver distraction controls through safety management systems.
- New consumer information initiatives (e.g. EuroNCAP) and legal design requirements on distraction will push all vehicles toward higher safety standards, drive innovation, and boost consumer demand for distraction management features.
The virtuous circle of consumer demand for vehicle safety, manufacturer innovations enhancing vehicle safety, and government regulation requiring vehicle safety improvements can help manage driver distraction.
EuroNCAP is introducing a new human machine interface protocol in 2026. This protocol aims to ensure that drivers do not need to take their eyes off the road any longer than strictly necessary to operate general in-vehicle controls. The protocol will assess the quality of design, including how a function is operated – such as a direct physical input (button, stalk, switch, etc.) or a touch display. This targets poor human machine interface design in cars and provides assurance that the driver of a 5-star safety rated can operate it safely.
The Australian Government is leading a working group of the UN Working Party 29 to review existing regulations and prepare draft regulations to address driver drowsiness and distraction (UNECE 2025). This working party manages the international vehicle regulatory system, and the project will address the design of vehicle dashboard areas and hand controls, and how they relate to driver monitoring systems.
Beyond regulatory and design advances, behavioural evidence also shows how distraction manifests on the road and how drivers perceive the risks.
Various surveys of behaviours and attitudes illustrate the significance of driver distraction as a safety issue and provide insights to the issue.
Driver distraction is a significant road safety concern, which is most clearly illustrated by attitudinal data from New South Wales (Ipsos 2024). When asked to rank nine road safety issues of greatest concern to them survey respondents in New South Wales ranked ‘speeding’ and ‘drivers being distracted’ well above all other issues. When asked to rank nine future road safety priorities, ‘vehicle technology that monitors drivers and detects fatigue and distraction’ was ranked at the top along with ‘measures that separate you from oncoming vehicles’.
Hand-held mobile phone use is prevalent amongst drivers, which is most clearly illustrated by reported behaviours in Victoria (TAC 2023). Just over half of Victorian drivers reported using a mobile phone in their hands for any purpose while driving in the last month – just under a half doing so to ‘interact with an app’, and a quarter to ‘make or receive a call’ or ‘send or read a text message’. Reassuringly, there appears to be a decline in the regularity of this. In 2016, 37% of drivers had sometimes (or more often) used a hand-held mobile phone in the last month, and that figure had declined to 29% in 2023.
Drivers are regulating their behaviour. A global study of road user attitudes has been tracking mobile phone use in Australia. The most recent ESRA (E-Survey of Road users’ Attitudes) study of 39 countries (Areal et al. 2024) indicates that 14% of Australian drivers report talking on a hand-held mobile phone within the last 30 days, and 40% on a hands-free mobile phone.
The Nine Domains for Managing Driver Distraction
To support a whole‑of‑system response, distraction management activity can be organised into nine domains. These domains help organisations map their responsibilities and target investments where they have the greatest influence.
- Design – Principles, guidelines and standards for safer interactions across roads, vehicles and technology.
- Mitigation – Availability and implementation of in‑vehicle distraction‑mitigation technologies.
- Workplace – Employer and WHS practices to manage distraction risk in operations and fleets.
- Compliance – Rules, detection and evaluation to strengthen compliance.
- Behaviour – Campaigns and education to shift norms and decisions.
- Systems – Governance and multi‑party coordination for sustained effort.
- Communications – Good‑practice safety communications.
- Engagement – Mechanisms that bring many parties together to act.
- Evaluation – Continuous learning about the issue and what works.
Next Steps — Others to Lead the Ongoing Effort
With Austroads’ contribution complete, the Roadmap now provides a practical pathway for governments, industry and the research community to continue the national effort:
Governments can advance standards, regulation, enforcement technologies and evaluation.
Vehicle and technology industries can integrate distraction‑aware HMI and driver monitoring, aligned to emerging international benchmarks.
Employers and fleet operators can embed distraction management in policies, procurement and training.
Researchers and civil society can fill evidence gaps, trial new approaches and support public engagement.
The immediate opportunity is to allocate resources to the remaining priority projects and to embed outcomes in mainstream policy, design and operational practice.
Austroads’ early implementation work assembled a prioritised list of high‑value projects, each addressing a structural gap in Australia and New Zealand’s distraction‑management system.
- Road environment standards (Domains: Design)
Develop and implement guidelines for the design of the road and traffic environment to reduce distraction. - Advertising safety standard (Domains: Design, Compliance)
Establish standardised criteria and methods for evaluating the safety impacts of roadside advertising signage. - Effectiveness of distraction countermeasures (Domains: Evaluation) Evaluate the effectiveness of various distraction countermeasures across education, enforcement, technology and design.
- Training crash investigators (Domains: Compliance, Evaluation) Provide training for police and crash investigators to detect distraction and distinguish it from other inattention mechanisms.
- No‑blame crash investigation (Domains: Evaluation, Systems) Undertake coronial‑based, no‑blame investigations of distraction‑related crashes for ministerial reporting.
- Stakeholder governance (Domains: Systems, Engagement) Establish and operationalise an ongoing governance framework to coordinate multi‑sector distraction‑management efforts.
- Data platform (Domains: Systems, Evaluation) Develop a data platform for tracking, analysing and sharing distraction‑related crash and infringement data.
- Standards for in‑vehicle phone setup (Domains: Design, Mitigation)
Promote a standardised approach for mounting and powering phones to prevent distraction from slipping or dislodgement. - Non‑transport stakeholders (Domains: Engagement, Behaviour) Recognise the roles of non‑transport stakeholders (e.g., healthcare, food, entertainment sectors) in shaping driver distraction.
- Technology standards (Domains: Design, Mitigation)
Encourage standardisation of mobile and wearable device design to restrict distractible operations while driving. - Communication platform (Domains: Communications, Engagement) Create a shared reporting dashboard to support communication, engagement and roadmap‑implementation transparency.
- National narrative to drive change (Domains: Behaviour, Communications) Develop a shared national narrative and align industry and manufacturer education campaigns to shift culture.
- Driver education (Domains: Behaviour, Communications) Provide distraction‑management education and training for drivers of all ages, integrated with testing.
- Vehicle distraction standard (Domains: Design, Mitigation)
Develop protocols for rating vehicles based on their potential to distract drivers, for use in consumer programs. - Impact of ADAS and partial automation on distraction (Domains: Evaluation, Design) Investigate how driver‑assistance and automation systems influence distraction and workload.
- Road environment assessment (Domains: Evaluation, Design) Develop assessment protocols to rate the distraction potential of the road and traffic environment (e.g., for audits/iRAP).
- Promote distraction‑technology prioritisation (Domains: Behaviour, Communications) Encourage consumers and fleet buyers to prioritise technologies that minimise distraction.
- Employer and SafeWork responsibility (Domains: Workplace, Systems) Encourage SafeWork Australia and employers to implement best‑practice workplace policies to manage distraction.
- After‑market distraction mitigation technologies (Domains: Mitigation, Evaluation) Identify vendors and assess feasibility of cost‑effective aftermarket distraction‑mitigating technologies.
- Job stress and distraction investigation (Domains: Workplace, Evaluation) Investigate how job demands, fatigue and wellbeing influence distraction risk.
- Corporate fleet policy (Domains: Workplace, Behaviour) Explore financial and non‑financial incentives in fleet insurance and procurement to encourage distraction‑prevention technologies.
- Effectiveness of mobile phone detection technology (Domains: Compliance, Evaluation) Evaluate different deployment methods (e.g., fixed vs mobile) for phone‑detection enforcement technologies.
- Evaluate existing regulations and penalties (Domains: Compliance, Evaluation) Assess the effectiveness of current distraction regulations and penalties, including moves to technology‑neutral laws.
- Demand technology improvement (Domains: Communications, Design)
Stimulate demand for other technologies (such as phone blocking, distraction warning systems and workload managers) where proven to prevent and directly mitigate the effects of distraction - Trial new technologies (Domains: Mitigation, Evaluation) Monitor and trial emerging technologies that support compliance with distraction regulations.
- Insurance incentives (Domains: Behaviour, Workplace, Evaluation) Assess the potential for personalised insurance incentives to encourage safe, low‑distraction driving practices.
- Evaluate roadmap implementation (Domains: Systems, Evaluation) After six years, evaluate progress and develop a distraction‑prevention strategy and plan to 2040.
Austroads resources
Guideline for Driver Distraction Data Collection
Recommendations for jurisdictions on identifying and coding distraction as a crash factor; training approaches for police and crash investigators; and the value of consistent national data for assessing countermeasures.
Human Factors Integration in Transport Systems and in Human–Machine Interface
How to embed human factors processes across system design to reduce attention demand, error likelihood and task conflict. Practical design advice for safe, intuitive in‑vehicle interfaces that minimise unnecessary driver attention demand .
Driver Distraction Implementation Guide
