The open road is a place of freedom and connection, but it’s also full of hidden dangers — particularly for those who work in its margins. From July 1, 2025, a major road rule change is coming to Victoria that will help keep our most vulnerable roadside workers a little bit safer. This new safety rule is an extension of a current one that could hopefully prevent many lives from being lost, but force motorists to change the way they drive.
A Change Born from Necessity
The numbers are a sobering narrative. Eighty-three per cent of road workers who participated in a recent survey by the Royal Automobile Club of Victoria (RACV) suffer a near miss with a passing motorist once a week or more. Let those sink in — not once a month or a year, but weekly close calls when workers escape injury or death while doing their jobs.
I saw one of those near misses myself last summer on the Monash Freeway. The driver of a flatbed tow truck was in the process of loading a disabled sedan at the time when a speeding sport utility vehicle swung into the emergency lane, apparently seeking to avoid the backing traffic and missing the worker in florescent vest by inches. I can still see the fear in the face of the tow truck driver, a vivid reminder of the daily risks these people take.
Victorian motorists already have to slow down to 40km/h when overtaking emergency vehicles which are stationary with their lights on, such as police cars and ambulances. Effective July 1st, this provision will also apply to tow trucks, mechanics, and roadside assistance vehicles. That is an important extension and one that acknowledges the risk that these workers assume when they are first to a call of a breakdown or accident.
The Workers Who Made the Mandate
RACV General Manager of Automotive Services Makarla Cole said “Victoria’s emergency roadside workers and tow truck drivers are frequently the first and sometimes the only ones on the scene of an incident or breakdown and they are also exposed to the type of risks that other responders, including police and paramedics, face.”
Then there is the human side of this regulation. These highway workers have families who are concerned about them every day. They’re parents, daughters, and sons — people who just want to get home safely after responding to stranded drivers. The roadside is their office, though their’s is two tonne vehicles careering at 100km as they do their job.
Glen Sampson has worked as a roadside assistance mechanic for more than 15 years in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs. He has changed countless flat tires on the shoulders of busy highways and diagnosed engine problems a few feet from fast-moving traffic. “Every time I hear tires screech in the distance, my heart stops,” he said to me in a conversation about this rule change. “You never get used to it. This rule may be that extra space we need to work safely.”
The Specifics of the Change
Under the rule, motorists will be required to reduce speed to 40km/h when passing any stopped or enforcement vehicle flashing red, blue, magenta or yellow lights. The law pertains to traffic heading in either direction on a two-way road, but only involves motorists driving in the direction that a roadside worker is working on a divided road with a median strip.
Expanded Road Rule 79A AN expanded Road Rule 79A will include accident towing, breakdown towing, roadside assistance, Peninsula Link Incident Response, Eastlink Incident Response and Transurban Incident Response vehicles.
What does this mean in a practical sense for average drivers? When you notice flashing lights of any sort on the side of the road, start slowing well before, check your mirrors and slow down to 40km/h until you are a safe distance past the situation. This proactive measure also allows any heavy vehicle following you the opportunity to match their speed as well, avoiding unnecessary tail chains.
The Cost of Non-Compliance
You’re just like any rule of the road in that you come with consequences for those who don’t follow you. Motorists who are caught not obeying the 40km/h limit are hit with a standard $346 fine, but can be fined up to $961. Either way, there’s no points to the violation.
But the real cost of non-compliance isn’t measured in dollars. For itinerant workers and their families, it could be the difference between life and death. An emotional toll when someone dies, or has decades of physical rehabilitation following a serious injury, that’s going to be more than the fine.
Victoria Falling in line with a national trend
Victoria is not burning a completely new path with this change. The rule for motorists to reduce their speed when passing emergency service vehicles has previously been expanded to cover roadside assist workers in Queensland, New South Wales and Tasmania. Amendments to Victoria’s laws will now bring the state up-to-date with the best practice of other jurisdictions around the country for protecting roadside workers.
The change, which RACV has been calling on the State Government to introduce since 2023, closes a loophole in Victoria’s road rules. It’s a welcome harmonization that provides uniformity for interstate drivers and extends equal protection to all roadside workers even though states vary.
The Larger Story About Workplace Safety
This road rule amendment takes place in the context of broader workplace safety issues. In Australia in 2018, vehicles accounted for 62 per cent of all reported work-related fatalities with 144 fatalities resulting from work-related incidents. These statistics underscore the strong case for increased protections for workers who perform their duties on or near our roads.
More recent statistics from Safe Work Australia included in Key Work Health and Safety Statistics Australia 2024 indicate vehicle incidents still account for the majority of worker deaths in Australia, at 42%. This ongoing threat is why measures such as Victoria’s 40km/h law are necessary elements of a multi-pronged approach to workplace safety.
Implementation Barriers in the Real World
Although this rule is necessary, it is a rather difficult one to enact. One issue is the risk that is generated if fast-moving traffic abruptly slows to 40km/h, particularly on freeways where the speed limit could be (e.g) 100km/h.
The rule change, according to Sarah Chen, a traffic safety engineer I consulted, involves “a transition zone that needs to be carefully managed. The secret, they say, is for drivers to recognize flashing lights early and more slowly, then to slow down gradually, paying clear signals with brake lights and by moving indicators. A rapid slowdown from 100km/h to 40km/h carries its own risks if not done correctly.”
Critics have raised some of the same questions about the proposal that were prompted when the original emergency vehicle rule came out. At the 40km/h per hour passing rule, the first one of its kind in Australia, there were initial concerns as some safety experts asked: Can traffic moving at 110km/h slow to 40km/h and nothing go wrong? These concerns persist as the rule grows to include more roadside situations.
But many of those who study road safety believe that through a process of education and acclimatization, the advantage is worth the risk. The key is to build awareness in advance of the July 1 onset date, so drivers will have time to think through how they will respond and form habits.
Getting Ready for Change: What Drivers Can Do Now
Drivers in Victoria have months until the rule becomes mandatory so they have time to adjust their habits if deemed necessary. Here are some practical tips to get ready.
And start practising now, before the rule becomes mandatory: When you clock workers by the roadside, start slowing down to 40km/h as if the law is already in force. Developing the habit early, will make sticking to this second nature in July.
Extend your scanning distance: Practice scanning further ahead when you drive to see flashing lights sooner and you will also have more time to slow down gradually.
Watch your following distance: Keep a three-second cushion between you and the car ahead, leaving plenty of room for you to stop if the car gets taken to school by a group of roadside workers who suddenly slow down.
Pay attention on common roads: Chances are you have driven the same road so many times, you enter into “autopilot.” And don’t forget, a highway breakdown can happen anywhere – even on the daily commute – so you should always be aware.
Think of other routes: If there is road works in a large amount of congestion and road side activities requiring vehicles to slow down you may want to also consider more than one route.
Tales from the Crusade
Behind the statistics and regulations are ordinary people who have stories that show why this rule is important. For eight years James Nguyen has been a tow truck driver in Melbourne’s western suburbs. So he pulled over to secure a vehicle on the Western Ring Road — and a side mirror from a passing truck whacked into his shoulder.
“It was lucky — if it was a couple of inches further any way it would have taken my head off,” James said. “You physically get a buzz of air when cars drive too close and too fast. It’s scary how exposed you are out there.”
The issue is personal for Cassandra Mitchell. Her father, a roadside assistance employee, was severely injured three years ago while changing a tire on the Princes Highway. “Dad was in hospital for months and still has mobility problems,” she said. A rule like this might have saved him.” No family should have to endure what we did.”
These anecdotes bring a face to the issue around the 40km/h rule and make us remember that behind every flashing roadside lights is someone’s loved one putting food on the table under potentially tough circumstances.
General Road Safety Benefits
The rule change is aimed primarily and laudably at protecting roadside workers, but there are some subsidiary benefits as well. Reduced traffic speed in the vicinity of the incident site will help prevent secondary accidents and provide responders with a safe location to work the primary incident.
Also, the rule establishes a more predictable movement of traffic at hazards. If every single driver is required to act in the same way—slowing down to 40km/h or so—then the entire traffic stream is capable of moving in a much more orderly way, eliminating the kind of wild speed differences from which crashes arise.
“Creating that education campaign around common-sense changes creates a wonderful educational dynamic as far as the general public wanting to know what’s happening with folks who are our most vulnerable road users.” This increased awareness may also extend to how drivers behave towards cyclists, pedestrians, and motorcycle drivers.
So Little, Yet So Much
As July 1, 2025 looms, Victoria is getting ready to make a roads rule change that demonstrates how relatively minor regulatory changes can have significant implications for the outcome of safety. Extending the 40km/h passing rule to all roadside service workers crosses state lines to fall in line with other states in Australia and recognise that all roadside workers are equals under the law.
The measure is a balance of interests – the driver interest in efficient traffic movement alongside the safety of those who drive the road network that moves people. It requires motorists to give up a couple minutes of their travel time in return for what could be lives saved — a bargain most of us would consider a good one.
As we adjust to this new exigency, it is worth remembering that roadside workers are not simply abstract bodies disappearing into safety statistics; they are neighbors performing the critical labor of helping stranded motorists, often in conditions that are hazardous to their own lives. The next time you come upon flashing lights up the road, remember that the decision to slow down isn’t just a matter of yielding to a new rule — it’s about recognizing the humanity of the person you’re flicking by just meters from your car.
The real measure of effectiveness of this rule will not be compliance rates, or how much in fines is collected, but in how much it reduces the number of near misses, injuries and fatalities experienced by the very people who make our roads safer for all of us. That’s a result worth coming to a screeching halt over.