LYNWOOD CRASH | How Perth rideshare drivers dodge the 12-hour fatigue rule
The horror crash on Nicholson Road, Lynwood, that killed a seven-month-old baby girl has reignited debate around Australia's rideshare fatigue rules.
Rajwinder Singh Grewal, 35, appeared at Armadale Magistrates Court last week charged with three counts of dangerous driving over the early-morning crash on Nicholson Road, Lynwood, on March 28.
The court was told he had allegedly been working for 22 hours when he fell asleep behind the wheel and slammed into a tree, killing the infant girl who was being held in her mother's lap.
His in-car camera reportedly captured him drifting off to sleep multiple times during that period, with prosecutors alleging he kept accepting jobs and picking up new passengers regardless.
Grewal has been granted amended bail conditions allowing him to continue working as a freight driver, with the requirement he be home between 9pm and 4am.
He is yet to enter a plea and returns to court in August.
The platform Grewal was driving for at the time of the crash has not been publicly identified, and what exactly the alleged 22-hour figure encompasses.
But the case has reignited a national conversation about something every rideshare driver knows, and most riders have no idea about: that the headline 12-hour fatigue rule promoted by the major platforms is, in industry reality, only as strict as the platform applying it.
The 12-hour rule, explained
Uber's fatigue management policy in Australia is, on paper, robust. Drivers who spend 12 cumulative hours online with the Uber app must take a continuous eight-hour break before they can log back on.
The app issues warnings at the two-hour, one-hour and 30-minute marks, and will automatically log a driver out if they fail to take the rest period themselves.
That timer does not pause when a driver goes offline for short rests. To reset the counter to zero, a driver must remain offline for eight uninterrupted hours.
If the 12-hour limit is hit for 12 days in a row, Uber takes the driver offline for a further 24 hours. The same penalty applies if a driver completes at least one trip per day for 28 consecutive days.
DiDi and Bolt — the other two largest competitors in the Australian market operate similar fatigue rules within their own systems.
In isolation, the rules sound airtight. In practice, they are easily side-stepped.
The multi-app reality
Many Australian rideshare drivers run two or even three platforms simultaneously, switching between them as jobs come in. The fatigue clock on each app only counts the time the driver is logged in to that specific app.
In one widely-shared post on Uber Drivers Forum, a driver explained the setup in technical detail:
"I have two phones but only one SIM card. The phone without the SIM is tethered (via WiFi hotspot) to the phone with the SIM."
"Uber on one phone and DiDi on the other."
"When you get a job on one phone immediately go offline on the other phone."
Another wrote:
"Why two phones? You can run all apps on the one phone. I run three with no problems."
The result is that a driver can hit one platform's automated cut-off and immediately switch to a fresh window on a different app — without ever leaving the driver's seat.
Twelve plus twelve — in theory, 24 hours on the road, all within the technical letter of each individual platform's fatigue rules.
No central regulator is catching this
Each Australian state and territory has its own point-to-point or rideshare regulator, but none of them maintain a unified driver fatigue tracking system that monitors a driver across platforms.
WA's regulatory framework — like every other state — relies almost entirely on individual platforms self-managing fatigue within their own apps.
There is no centralised database tracking how long a single driver has been on the road across all platforms combined.
There is no requirement for Uber to share fatigue data with DiDi or Bolt. There is no unified regulator monitoring total time behind the wheel.
WA Road Safety Commission has identified driver fatigue as one of the State's "Big 4" causes of serious and fatal crashes — alongside speed, impairment and distraction.
The Commission notes that staying awake for 17 hours has the same effect on driving performance as a blood alcohol concentration of 0.05.
The financial pressure to keep driving
Why do drivers then push themselves to extremes in the first place? The answer is partly structural.
Rideshare drivers are independent contractors. They earn only when the wheels are turning.
There is no minimum wage protection, no overtime, no penalty rates, no paid sick leave.
Both Uber and DiDi also run incentive programs that offer bonus payments for hitting trip thresholds within set time windows.
These incentives are designed to ensure platforms have enough drivers on the road during peak demand.
For drivers chasing those bonuses, taking a six- or eight-hour break can mean losing the trip count needed to hit the bonus tier.
Combined with cost-of-living pressures and the rising cost of vehicle ownership, the incentive to keep accepting trips far beyond a healthy fatigue limit is enormous.
The broader question
The Lynwood case is, in personal terms, a tragedy of devastating cost.
But independent of that case, the broader regulatory framework governing rideshare fatigue in Australia is being increasingly questioned by safety advocates, drivers themselves and even some operators within the industry.
Heavy vehicle drivers in Australia operate under strict National Heavy Vehicle Regulator fatigue laws, with hard caps on driving hours, mandated rest breaks, and detailed work diaries that follow them across every employer.
Rideshare drivers — carrying passengers, including children, on the same roads, operate under no such cross-platform protection.
Whatever the court outcome of the Lynwood crash, the case has now ensured that the wider question — how Australia regulates rideshare driver fatigue in a multi-platform gig economy — will not be quietly set aside.
WTV
WTV
