Assessing fitness to drive

Assessing Fitness to Drive, a joint publication of Austroads and the National Transport Commission (NTC), details the medical standards for driver licensing for use by health professionals and driver licensing authorities, but should be on the list of things to read for fleet managers.

The primary purpose of this publication is to increase road safety in Australia by assisting health professionals to:

• assess the fitness to drive of their patients in a consistent and appropriate manner based on current medical evidence;
• promote the responsible behaviour of their patients, having regard to their medical fitness;
• conduct medical examinations for the licensing of drivers as required by state and territory driver licensing authorities;
• provide information to inform decisions on conditional licences;
• recognise the extent and limits of their professional and legal obligations with respect to reporting fitness to drive.

The publication also aims to provide guidance to driver licensing authorities in making licensing decisions.

With these aims in mind, Assessing Fitness to Drive:

• outlines clear medical requirements for driver capability based on available evidence and expert medical opinion;
• clearly differentiates between national minimum standards (approved by the Transport and Infrastructure Council) for drivers of commercial and private vehicles;
• provides general guidelines for managing patients with respect to their fitness to drive;
• outlines the legal obligations for health professionals, driver licensing authorities and drivers;
• provides a reporting template to guide reporting to the driver licensing authority if required;
• provides links to supporting and substantiating information.

The standards are approved by Commonwealth, state and territory transport ministers.

The standards in this 2016 edition are effective from 1 October 2016. You can download a PDF of the guide using this link.