Assessing fitness to drive
How to assess a patient’s medical condition for fitness to drive
When you assess a patient's fitness to drive, you must follow the standards in the current edition of Austroads Assessing Fitness to Drive. These standards provide guidance about how a mental or physical incapacity may affect a person’s ability to drive safely.
When you assess how a medical condition or disability affects your patient’s driving, consider:
- how well they can see, hear, and feel things
- how well they can move and control their body
- how well they can think, remember things, and make decisions
- the risk of suddenly not being able to control the vehicle because of a health problem
Helpful tools
We encourage you to use our Private and Commercial Vehicle Driver’s Health Assessment (F3195) form as a tool to guide your medical assessment. If you choose to use the form, you should retain it with the patient’s medical records.
Health Pathways on the Queensland Health website may also assist you to manage common medical conditions for fitness to drive.
Assessing drivers 75 or older without a health condition
We require everyone 75 or older to carry a medical certificate for motor vehicle drivers whenever they drive. Some of these people may not have a medical condition. Using the general guidelines in the Assessing fitness to drive standards can be helpful.
Temporary conditions
Symptoms that are short term or only happen sometimes can also affect safe driving. You should assess these using the standards for temporary conditions in the Assessing Fitness to Drive
If the condition is temporary, the patient does not need to notify us. However, the patient must follow any recommended non-driving periods.
When to involve specialists
The Assessing Fitness to Drive standards specify when you must refer a patient to a relevant specialist.
You can also refer a patient to a specialist, if you need more information to make your recommendation to us. Complete the medical certificate after the specialist assesses the patient and provides you with their advice.
Specialist wait times
Sometimes, there may be a delay in getting an appointment to see a specialist. While your patient waits to see the specialist, they may want to keep driving. Learn when you can issue an interim medical certificate to allow your patient to keep driving until their appointment
Practical driving assessment
You can refer your patient to an occupational therapist for a practical driving assessment. This can be helpful where:
- the impact of medical condition on the patient’s driving is unclear
- the patient may need vehicle modifications to safely operate a vehicle.
Read about completing an interim medical certificate so your patient can do the driver assessment.
In this guide:
- Choose either the private or commercial standard
- How to assess a patient’s medical condition for fitness to drive
- Recommending changes to a patient's driver licence
- Decide a review period and expiry date for the medical certificate
- Complete the medical certificate form to give to your patient
- Previous ( https://oss-uat.clients.squiz.net/transport/licensing/healthy-to-drive/for-health-professionals/assessing-fitness-to-drive/standard )
- Next ( https://oss-uat.clients.squiz.net/transport/licensing/healthy-to-drive/for-health-professionals/assessing-fitness-to-drive/recommending-licence-changes )