4 Wheel Drive Safety
There are many accidents every year that could have been avoided by slowing down and understanding that the environment that you are driving in is like no other, conditions change daily.
- For safety sake always travel along the beach 2–3 hours either side of low tide and always remain in four-wheel drive.
- The speed limit on the island is 35 kilometres per hour and 80 kilometres per hour on 75-mile beach.
Don't end up like this! - When approaching another vehicle use your indicators to let the oncoming vehilce know which side of them you will be passing on.
- Don’t forget to deflate you tyres. This will increase the surface area of your cars weight on the sandy tracks thus giving you more traction. This also reduces the impact your vehicle has on the tracks and will keep them in better condition for future users.
- When parking on the beach, park your vehicle above the high tide mark.
- The other factor to remember that reducing your tyre pressure leaves your vehicle susceptible to body rolling and those in top heavy vehicles should take their time when making any turns on the beach or in the sandy tracks.
- Always respect the island and remember that this is a World Heritage Area that we would like to keep both clean and undamaged so that our children can come and enjoy the beauty of Fraser Island.
- DO NOT DRINK AND DRIVE. The same road laws apply on Fraser Island as on the Australian mainland.
- When driving on Fraser always look out for creeks and washouts along the beach as they can have a sheer drop off of up to 1 metre.
- Look out for what locals call ‘melon holes’ and ‘whoopdidoos’ which are unexpected sand patterns that create holes in the beach that if hit at a high speed can cause rolling of your vehicle. Quite often the first response when you hit one of these is to ‘yank’ the wheel. With having deflated tyres in a top-heavy vehicle this tends to make the vehicle roll onto its’ roof.
- Always remember that conditions change day to day. You can be at a particular spot on one day and it can be a totally different landscape the next. Storms play a large factor in this as they can change sand patterns and create holes and washout all over Fraser. They can also wash away roads and beach access points.