Car Advice

You never love to see them in your rear-view mirror, but you do like knowing they’re out on the roads keeping us safe. I’m talking, of course, about police cars.

Is it illegal to drive a car registered to a deceased person?The short answer is: yes. The law may differ slightly from state to state/territory but essentially the same principle applies: if the registered owner/operator of a vehicle dies, the registration must be transferred to a new registered operator or cancelled before it is driven on a road or a road-related area (i.e. a driveway, service station or shopping centre).You are not legally allowed to drive a deceased person's car if it is still registered to the deceased person. Again, for those in the cheap seats, if the registered owner/operator of a vehicle dies, the registration must be transferred to a new registered operator or cancelled before it is driven on a road or a road-related area (i.e. a driveway, service station or shopping centre).It doesn’t matter if you’re family, a family friend, the spouse or the favourite child of the deceased person and/or the executor of their will, if you’re caught driving a car that is registered to a deceased person then you may face a fine or penalty.Just don’t do it.You’re much better off transferring ownership of the vehicle or vehicles in question if you have the authority to do so via the will or probate documents.In order to transfer ownership of the deceased’s vehicle, head to the appropriate service centre in your state or territory, taking with you proof of identity, the deceased individual’s death certificate and a range of other official documents, which may vary depending on your state/territory and your circumstances.In NSW, you are required to visit a NSW service centre in person and show proof of your identity, the deceased person’s death certificate, a completed Application for Transfer of Registration, and either the death certificate (original or copy), newspaper death notice, online newspaper notification (the live link), a letter from a solicitor or the NSW Trustee and Guardian advising that the person is deceased, a completed Advice of Death – PDF together with a proof of identity document of the deceased additional documents depending on whether there is a will or not – and – or in the case of a missing person presumed deceased, a 'Presumption of Death Order' issued by the Supreme Court (original or copy).If there is a will and ownership of the vehicle in question is being transferred to the beneficiary or executor, a copy of the relevant section of the will or probate document, or a signed, written advice from a solicitor or NSW Trustee and Guardian must be submitted to the appropriate government department and the document or documents must name the new operator as the beneficiary or executor. So, the onus is on you.These processes are in place to avoid fraudulent or malicious dealings with the deceased person’s estate and unauthorised transfers by a registered operator on the basis that they’re deceased when they’re not. Naughty.Also, take note. Stamp duty and transfer fees do not apply, in NSW at least, if the vehicle is transferred into the name of a beneficiary or executor nominated in the will, the administrator of the estate, the surviving joint operator, the next of kin, or a different proven beneficiary in a subsequent transfer.For example, if the registration is transferred into the name of a person, and then subsequently transferred to a different proven beneficiary.Fees may apply if there is a change of registration usage – for example, changing from pensioner concession to private usage.If the vehicle is disposed of or sold without being transferred to a person named in a will or other acceptable document, the new operator must meet the usual requirements to transfer the registration.Don’t forget, any licence or licences of the deceased person must be cancelled.If there is no will, the vehicle in question may be transferred to the administrator of the estate or to the surviving joint operator or next of kin. Both of those circumstances require their own range of official forms, including a Statutory Declaration and other supporting documents.Not really – there are only slight variations in terms of what’s required of the party or parties who are responsible for the cancellation or transfer of ownership of the deceased person’s vehicle as per their duties with regards to the execution of the will or probate documents. (Yep, that’s my version of over-worded legalese.)It doesn’t matter if you’re the spouse or child of the deceased person and no matter whether you reside in, or the deceased resided in, NSW, Vic, Qld or any other state or territory, the law is the law: if the registered owner/operator of a vehicle has died, the registration must be transferred to a new registered operator or cancelled before it is driven on a road or a road-related area (i.e. a driveway, service station or shopping centre).If you need to move the vehicle before registration is transferred it will have to be towed or transported.

Buying a car privately seems like the smarter, cheaper way to go about making what is, for most of us, the second biggest purchase we make in our lives, but when you’re talking about that much money, and handing it over to a complete stranger, how does that actually work?

Is it illegal to flash your headlights to warn of police? It depends on the circumstances, the state or territory in which you are driving at the time and whether you’ve flashed your high beam headlights or just your headlights.

Who is responsible if a car is damaged by a pothole?You would imagine that damage caused to your car as a result of poor or negligent road maintenance would be paid for by the body charged with maintaining those roads, right? Certainly that was once the expectation.But think again, because at a point in history where our roads haven’t been as neglected for many decades, the authorities are doing their level best to make it the car owner’s problem.It should be a simple question: Who is liable for damage caused by potholes? It was once the case that the state authority or local council responsible for a particular stretch of road would pay up if a lack of repairs – usually a giant pothole – caused damage to a car – most usually its wheels and tyres, but often suspension as well.That’s kind of still the case on paper, but the reality is the car owner is likely to be fixing the car at their own cost thanks to a range of loopholes drafted into recent legislation.As such, you need to take each case of vehicle damage on its own merits because you could wind up dealing with a variety of state-based bodies or one of the hundreds of local councils who are technically responsible.Either way, the recent spate of extreme weather events, combined with cash-strapped post-Covid governments has meant getting the responsible authorities to pay for your car’s damage when you hit an unrepaired crater in the middle of the road, is more difficult and less likely than ever before.When it comes to getting out of paying a pothole damage claim QLD is a great example. For a start, you have to fill in an online form and provide details of the location, photos of the damage to your vehicle and receipts or quotes for repairs.Then, to make your claim stick, you are responsible for proving that the Department of Transport and Main Roads failure to repair the damage was a contributor to the damage on your car. Exactly how you do this is not part of the explanation.The Dept then references the state’s Civil Liability Act (2003) to determine whether the department should have known about the problem, what resources were available at the time and whether another problem took precedence over the pothole that smashed your front wheel and shredded the tyre.Because of this, it’s impossible to suggest whether a particular claim will be accepted or not, because of the nebulous nature of these clauses.Then there are the department’s other get-out-of-jail cards. These include denying claims for damage due to debris, and damage to tyres (or their rims) with an aspect ratio of 40 per cent or less. And this, despite the fact that many new cars are fitted legally, from the factory, with 40-series tyres or smaller. Oh, and if a weather event is deemed extreme, damage from that won’t be covered, either.Should you be from down south and thinking about lodging a pothole damage claim Victoria right now also has the loopholes coming thick and fast. Cash-strapped as the state is, road maintenance has been one of the victims, yet the state is doing more and more to avoid taking responsibility for this.Just for starters, the department responsible has changed the dollar-value threshold of the damage before it will step in. Indexed to the Consumer Price Index, the threshold for the 2024/25 financial year stands at $1640.That is, unless you have a damage bill for greater than this amount, the department is not going to cough up. Interestingly, replacing a wheel and tyre (surely the most common claim) would generally be less than this threshold, getting the department conveniently off the hook.Even when the damage surpasses the threshold, the payout would only be for the amount of the damage that is above and beyond that threshold.So, if your car sustains $1650 worth of damage and you can get the department to admit responsibility, your damages payout will be $10. And since a pothole flat tyre reimbursement is all most people are looking for, that threshold is a distant target.To lodge a pothole damage claim NSW style, you’ll also need to jump a few hurdles. You’ll need to download a PDF form from the Service NSW website, then add your personal details including a photocopy of the licence of the person driving at the time of the damage.You also need to include a map or diagram of the incident and location, the details of the vehicle, the details of the damage (including photos) and copies of at least two quotes for repairs as well as the repair invoice. And then you can wait for up to six weeks for the authorities to okay or deny your claim.The bottom line in all of this is that you’ll be expected to do the legwork in getting any claim for damages paid on this basis.Claiming pothole-created damage from the state government versus claiming pothole damage from council coffers will be a different process across the country as the rules dreamed up by each body will vary.At last count, there were 537 local councils across Australia, all of them potentially responsible for fixing potholes and the vast majority of them employing pothole repairers either as staff or contractors.This comes down to who makes the rules, and who you need to deal with will relate to who is responsible for fixing potholes on that section of road. And since the GFC and Covid, when all departments are feeling the pinch, the clauses are getting ever more pernickety.But there must be more to it than that? Probably, and as well as a general tightening of budgets around the country, many councils who once employed road crews would have calculated that the average pothole repair cost was less than paying out a car owner’s claim.But these days, when so much roadwork is conducted by contactors maybe that’s not the case any more. And if you can wriggle out of the claim and wait until the pothole can no longer be ignored, perhaps that’s the financially sound – if not them morally correct – approach at work.If you do wind up on the wrong end of a pothole with a damaged car, the first thing to do is make sure everybody is safely off the road (assuming the car is no longer driveable). You can then elect to either change the tyre yourself (if no other damage has been done) or call the road patrol cavalry.From there, you need to document all the damage and keep notes, quotes and receipts for any rectification work. Finally, it’s then up to you to contact the relevant department (once you’ve worked out who that is) and put your case forward. Good luck.You may find an independent inspection of the car by your local workshop or state motoring club is a good idea, too, but make sure you get a written report of the damage to present as part of your case. Don’t forget to take photos of the pothole at the scene.The other thing you need to do before embarking on this damage claim journey is make sure the damage is indeed, pothole inflicted.There are plenty of ways to damage a car’s suspension or wheels, but if the damage coincided with hitting a giant crater in the fast lane, that’s the big clue in how to tell if pothole damaged car parts are what you’re looking at versus general wear and tear. Perhaps the impact was recorded on your dashcam? Even better.Meantime, it’s important not to confuse pothole damage with debris damage. And who is responsible for road debris damage? Another debatable question.If the debris is the actual bitumen parts of a pothole being flung everywhere by a leading or oncoming car, you probably have a case. But if the debris is just general rocks and stuff thrown up by other cars, or junk falling from a tradie’s ute and then struck by your car, you’re more likely to be on your own.Potholes are most likely to develop after rain. The water gets under the bitumen, loosening the road base and allowing the top layer of bitumen to break up.By the time a few hundred cars and a dozen heavy trucks have further pummelled that same section of road, potholes are being born. And until pothole repairs have been carried out, it’s only going to get bigger. Any driver who clobbers it at that point is very likely to suffer car damage.

What is the fastest P-plate legal car in Australia? There’s no hard and fast winner when it comes to what is the fastest legal p-plate car, as each state has differing rules about what is allowed.

How much does it cost to charge an electric car at a public charging station in Australia? The entirely wonderful news is that the answer starts at a very reasonable “nothing” because there are some free charging stations out there.Much like service stations, with their highly combustible and holiday-dependent fuel prices, however, how much it costs to charge your EV at a public charging station will vary based on the supplier, the cost they are charging per kilowatt and the size of your car’s battery.If we base our answer on the average EV battery capacity of 60kWh and the mid-range charger price of around 40c/kWh, the average price to charge an EV would be $24, while the maximum price could be pushing $50.Keep in mind, of course, that that’s the cost for filling an entire battery from empty to 100 per cent, which you will never do, because running your EV completely flat is not great for your car, and even worse for you, because you’ll be stranded, and you can’t put a hose onto a nearby car and suck out volts with your mouth.Of course, once we take into account the widely different size of EV batteries - from a Fiat 500e with a 42kWh battery to a Porsche Taycan with 105kWh - and the speed and power of public chargers, which vary from 7.0kW to 350kW plus the pricing of public chargers, which range from that lovely free number to as much as 85c per kWh, you can see that calculating an accurate average is a task akin to juggling chainsaws on ketamine. Albeit slightly less dangerous.The other new wrinkle that EVs throw up that makes the price of charging them so different to filling a car with fuel is that the faster you’re filling up, the more it costs.Much like the “convenience” stores attached to service stations, and main streets everywhere, you’re paying for the convenience here, and this is a case where time really is money.What you probably really want to know, up front, is whether charging an EV at a public charging station is cheaper or more expensive than filling up a car with fuel at a petrol station.Considering the very cheapest price you can charge your electric car for is “free”, the answer is yes. Even if you use the most expensive ultra fast 350kW DC chargers, the price is still going to be around 20 per cent cheaper than filling a comparable vehicle with petrol, according to the EV Council.The other thing you’re probably very keen to hear is where can I find one of these free public charging stations? The good news is they do exist, the bad news is that they are all Tesla ones - or Tesla Destination Chargers, to be exact, which charge at a relatively modest 22kW but are free for Tesla owners (and sometimes for other EVs as well, it’s worth plugging into one to check).As of February 2024, there were 668 Tesla Destination Chargers around Australia, and more than 40,000 worldwide.Then we have the independent company JOLT’s free 7.0kWh of DC charging every day (15-20 minutes of charging, or roughly 50km of range) and the limited power (12-14kWh) free (albeit limited) charging stations found in council areas in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. We can expect, or hope, to see more of these in the future.Until recently, the NRMA was also offering free fast DC charging at more than 100 locations, but it brought in a charge for those in September, 2023.The NRMA is rolling its Fast (up to 150kW) and Ultra-Fast chargers on highways around the country and it is currently charging 54 cents per kilowatt hour for the Fast ones or 59 cents per kWh for the Ultra Fast, which offer 175kW charging.So, let’s use a Tesla Model 3 Long Range/Tesla Model Y as our standard size of battery from this point on, as they share a 75kWh battery and are two of the most popular EVs on our roads.For our typical Tesla, then, charging from 30 per cent full to 100 per cent would cost around $30 at an NRMA charger.Being a Tesla owner, of course, you could also avail yourself of the Tesla network of Superchargers, which offer between 100 and 120kW charging, and cost between 64 and 81c per kWh, depending on variables including membership fees, and whether you’re charging a Tesla or a non-Tesla.So again, that’s between $33 and $43 to go from 30 per cent to 100 per cent on a Tesla Model 3 Long Range or Tesla Model Y battery.Other providers of fast charging of between 100 and 120kW include Chargefox (45c to 60c per kWh), AmpCharge (at some Ampol service stations, between 60 and 69c) and Exploren (prices change by location).There are also DC chargers offering 25 to 50kW, 75kW, 150kW, 200 to 250kW and 'Ultra Rapid' charges at more than 350kW and prices range widely, from 15c per kWh to 85c.It’s important to remember that most people - more than 80 per cent, according to research - will do most of their EV charging at home, and another 80 per cent of EV purchasers have solar panels on their house, meaning they can, in theory, charge their vehicles for free.But there are more than 3700 public EV charging stations in Australia, and 100 per cent of EV owners will, at some point, have to use a public charging station.This inevitability leaves EV owners questioning whether a gas-guzzler would financially suit them better, but to compress a lengthy debate into a concise point; you’re better off with an EV.As for the physical process of charging an EV at a public charging spot, it’s almost identical to that of traditional refuelling. Approach the charging station gently with no sudden movements, plug your vehicle in, and retreat backwards whilst maintaining eye contact with the charger at all times.Unlike a fuel bowser, however, you can then walk off and have a coffee, or write a short novel, while waiting for the process to finish.

For quite a few years I commuted an hour-and-a-half from the NSW Central Coast to Sydney and, in that time, I saw people doing all kinds of reckless, stupid acts on the freeway while driving at 110km.

What is blue P plates in Australia? And what does P plate stand for?Most people are fairly confident in recognising what an L-Plate is and its graduating levels – red and green P plates. If you don’t, the ‘P’ in P plate refers to the driver being on a provisional licence, either P1 for red P plates for P2 for green P plates.But have you ever seen or even heard of blue P plates? And a hint, just like red P plates can fade to pink P plates, they’re not faded green P plates that look blue towards the end of their life!They’re also not the blue R plates Australia that MyCar.com.au have launched in NSW, for 'returning drivers' who have experienced road trauma to display when they are getting back into the driver's seat.Fig 1 sourced from mycar.com.auBlue P plates stemmed from a program developed by Sarah Bruce, a former VicRoads licence tester and owner of the Drive Skills 4 Life business.Drive Skills 4 Life helps learner drivers get their licence, has dedicated programs to get drivers who have experienced trauma and anxiety back on the road, as well as a NDIS plan.Sarah developed the Blue P Program to assist learner drivers and their parents with the driving skills and safety awareness necessary for the mandatory 120-hour driving experience and testing required prior to graduating to the red P plate licensing level.Sarah Bruce – owner of Drive Skills 4 Life and creator of the Blue P ProgramWhat made this program stand out was its support for the parents and carers who are supervising their learner child driver.The program was customised to the client and included skills tuition and a comprehensive booklet featuring checklists and information to encourage respectful and safe driving – all under the care of an accredited instructor.Parents also had the option of contacting the driving instructor in-between lessons to discuss areas they needed further help with and to incorporate the feedback into practical suggestions during their own lessons with their child.The biggest takeaway Sarah had from the program was that a carer's direct involvement and participation in the lessons resulted in learner drivers who were more safety conscious and retained more of their professional lesson material than those whose parents ‘sat back’ and hoped the instructor taught them everything.Parents who took on lesson feedback (even sat in the back of the learning car during initial lessons) were key to a child’s safe driving success.It makes sense because driving can become habitual, including elements that are unsafe, or not in line with the current road rules and regulations.Teaching a teenager to drive is daunting enough with the eventual eye-rolls and ‘I know how to do this’ (while they very nearly swipe a parked car to their left – lookin’ at you little bro). But instructing a mini dictator on road rules that you ‘know’ (but also might need a refresher course on) can be traumatic.The Blue P Program was designed to get the parent and the teenager ready to drive by offering after lesson support and guidance to address any concerns.You may have noticed we’ve been talking in past tense and that’s because due to confusion about the blue P plate meaning and concern people could associate it with signage for disabled parking, the initiative was renamed Driver Support Program in 2019.Then the COVID-19 pandemic struck and the program was scaled back. No longer available as a ‘package’ to purchase, Sarah instead incorporated the key elements into her professional lessons as she recognised how strong the program results were.And Sarah believes there should be more programs like the Blue P Program out there. We all want safer drivers who are better with risk assessment and being respectful on the road.Our younger drivers are also one of our most at-risk groups on the road and what better way to protect them than by giving them the skillset to become great drivers.There are currently no states in Australia that use blue P plates. But it poses the question, should we have something similar to the R plate but for those learner drivers who have undergone specialist defensive driving and/or hazard perception courses. It might encourage participation in those courses if the driver gets to display their ‘cool’ P plates.

Q: Who gets the fine if a passenger is not wearing a seatbelt? A: the driver, and usually the offending passenger as well, if they’re over the age of 16.