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My son is at the age where he is learning to drive. It is extremely stressful. Not being in control in a situation with someone who is learning how complicated it can be to learn how to drive is not great for the nerves.
So far, it's been pretty incident free. But paying attention to everything is a lot, and new research from Navman shows it. According to Navman's research, speeding fines are usually the result of momentary lapses in attention rather than deliberate risk-taking.
Navman commissioned Lonergan Research to survey 1,005 Australian drivers, and the results back up how I feel every time I'm in the passenger seat.
Only 12% of people who've been fined say they knowingly broke the limit. Everyone else has a different excuse, and most of them sound less like recklessness and more like ordinary distraction.
Momentary lapses in attention topped the list at 26%. Missed or confusing speed signs accounted for another 19%, and 17% blamed driving in an unfamiliar area.
Add in drivers keeping pace with traffic (17%), running late (17%) and a medical or personal urgency (6%), and the picture is pretty clear. Speeding fines in Australia are rarely about someone deciding to floor it.
"As we head into another school term, the research serves as a timely reminder of the importance of staying focused behind the wheel," said Wendy Hammond, General Manager at Navman. "While life can be busy and distractions can arise, it's important for drivers to remain attentive and avoid slipping into 'autopilot' mode behind the wheel."
It's also, unsurprisingly, the pitch behind Navman's latest dash cams, which I covered when Navman's 2026 MiVue range launched back in May.
Navman claims the range's Smart Safety Camera Alerts scale their warning time to your speed, so the faster you're driving, the earlier you'll be warned about an upcoming camera. Drive within the limit and the alerts largely leave you alone.
The only catch with that – as someone who is testing out one of the models at the moment – is that the mapping for the speed zones isn't accurate. At two points on my school run, the dash cam warns me I'm going through a school zone that doesn't exist. One of them is the exit off a freeway.
If you can get past that issue, the same models cover school zone alerts timed to school hours, average speed camera alerts for point to point zones, and Premium Driver Alerts for motorway speed changes and known accident blackspots.
Some of the newer MiVue units will even tell you what speed to be doing as you approach a camera, which takes some of the guesswork out of unfamiliar roads.
None of it replaces actually paying attention, and Navman is upfront about that. But for a P-plater still building road sense, or anyone prone to zoning out on a familiar drive, it's a reasonable bit of backup.
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