Outback driving for the first time? Here’s what actually goes wrong

Outback driving isn’t risky because of the distance. RACQ reports that 65 per cent of the 1,252 lives lost on Australian roads in 2023 were lost outside the cities. Fatigue, road trains and animals do most of it, and each one has a rule you can follow.

How often should you stop when you’re driving all day?

Take a 15-minute break at least every two hours, and keep the day’s driving under 10 hours. That’s the guidance from Queensland’s StreetSmarts road safety program, and Tourism NT gives remote travellers the same two-hour, 15-minute pattern.

The interval is that short because tiredness doesn’t announce itself the way a flat tyre does. StreetSmarts reckons 17 hours without sleep leaves you driving about as badly as a 0.05 blood alcohol reading would, which is the legal limit for a full licence holder. You don’t feel 0.05 either.

Timing matters as much as duration. The hours from 2am to 6am, and the slump between 2pm and 4pm, account for the bulk of sleep-related crashes according to StreetSmarts, which also ranks fatigue in the state’s five biggest crash factors. If your plan involves a pre-dawn start to beat the heat, that start is the riskiest hour of the trip.

The other number worth remembering is 25km. StreetSmarts finds more than half of fatigue crashes happen inside 25km of the driver’s starting point, so the danger isn’t only the last leg of a long day. These crashes also tend to be worse than average, because a driver who has nodded off never touches the brake, and the car often has nobody else in it.

So share the driving if there’s a second licence holder in the car, and treat the two-hour stop as fixed rather than optional. RACQ suggests breaking up a long regional drive every couple of hours to get out and move around. Over a 10-hour day that costs you about an hour. It’s the cheapest hour of the trip.

How do you safely overtake a road train?

Don’t pull out unless a clear kilometre of road sits in front of you, and if the view is shorter than that, hold your position. Tourism NT says a Territory road train can run past 50 metres in length and 2.5 metres in width, and that getting around one doing 100km/h can eat up 2.5km of road.

Think about what that 2.5km means from the driver’s seat. On undulating country you often can’t see that far, and oncoming traffic you haven’t spotted yet is closing on you at the same speed. A crest or a bend arriving in the middle of the manoeuvre is the problem, not the truck.

Four habits make the whole thing easier. Sit well back so you can see past the trailers rather than tailgating them. Pull out only once the road is straight and the view is genuinely long. Commit, and hold a steady throttle rather than easing off halfway. Then get fully past and clear before moving back across, because the tail of a road train is further behind you than it feels.

If none of that lines up, stay where you are. The truck is working to a timetable and you aren’t, and the next overtaking opportunity on a straight outback highway is rarely far away.

Why are dawn and dusk the worst times to be driving?

Wildlife and stock move most around sunrise, sunset and overnight, which is exactly when your own vision and alertness are at their worst. Tourism NT flags those windows, and RACQ links a large share of regional crashes to animals wandering onto the road, with dawn and dusk the worst of it.

It isn’t only kangaroos. Tourism Central Australia names dingoes, horses, sheep, cattle and even eagles among the hazards on Central Australian roads, and much of that country is unfenced. A beast standing on warm bitumen after dark is a different proposition to a roo bounding across in front of you.

When something is on the road, brake in a straight line, use the horn, and keep the car pointed where it’s already going rather than steering around the animal. That’s what Tourism NT advises, and most serious outcomes come from the swerve rather than the impact. RACQ also suggests running high beam where it’s appropriate so animals show up earlier, and dipping it the moment another vehicle appears.

Best for a first long trip: start mid-morning, aim to be parked up well before sunset, and build the itinerary around daylight hours instead of distance targets. It is slower on paper and faster in practice, because nobody drives well late at night on day three.

Do you need a four-wheel drive on unsealed roads?

Not for most of them. Tourism NT says a two-wheel drive will handle the majority of gravel routes, that rougher dirt suits a four-wheel drive better, and that tracks genuinely needing 4WD normally carry a sign telling you so.

What changes on gravel is grip, not ground clearance. There’s less of it, so steering, braking and any sudden correction all take longer to bite. RACQ is blunt about it, arguing that the only safe speed on an unsealed surface is whatever the road will allow, and that the margin shrinks again after dark. In practice that means well under the posted limit, both hands on the wheel, and no sharp inputs.

Watch for crossings too. Tourism Central Australia puts the number of level rail crossings in the Territory above 200, and in open country a crossing can arrive with very little around it to warn you.

Best for a first trip: sealed highways plus the main formed gravel routes between towns, with signposted four-wheel-drive-only tracks left until you’ve done the distance once and know how your car behaves.

What should you carry where there’s no phone signal?

Water, spare fuel and a way of calling for help that doesn’t rely on a mobile tower. RACQ tells anyone heading into the outback to take spare fuel, water and emergency gear, to pack for both heat and cold, and to read the forecast before leaving.

On water, Tourism NT puts the figure at 4 to 6 litres a day for each person in remote country, and points out that Territory mobile coverage has real gaps, with a satellite phone the answer in some areas. A short list covers most of it:

• Drinking water, 4 to 6 litres each person each day, kept separate from what’s in your drink bottles.
• Spare fuel in an approved container, filled before you leave the last large town.
• A satellite phone or a personal locator beacon, because coverage runs out long before the road does.
• Clothing for heat and for cold, since outback nights get far colder than the afternoon suggests.
• Basic emergency supplies including food, a first aid kit and a torch.

Fuel planning is simpler than it sounds once you stop assuming your range will stretch. Top up at every roadhouse you pass rather than the one you picked off a map, because opening hours in small settlements are not guaranteed and a closed bowser turns a comfortable margin into a problem.

If the car does stop, stay with it. Tourism NT is firm here: a stranded vehicle shows up from the air or from the road in a way a person on foot does not, and walking for help in heat is how a breakdown becomes something worse.

Finally, get the car serviced before you go rather than after. Check tyres, including the spare, along with coolant, belts and hoses. If you run a diesel that normally only does short suburban trips, a long highway run is one of the few chances its filter gets to clear properly, and it’s worth understanding why short town trips clog a diesel particulate filter before you load up and leave.

None of this makes remote driving complicated. Rest every two hours, don’t overtake without a kilometre of clear road, stay off the road at dawn and dusk, slow down on gravel, and carry water and a satellite option. Do those five things and the distance stops being the hard part.