Injured driving to or from work

Both of the things people believe about this are wrong

One story is that journey claims were abolished in Australia. The other is that of course you are covered, because you were on your way to work. Neither is right, and which one you have heard mostly depends on which state the person telling you lives in.

The ordinary commute is compensable in four jurisdictions and is not in the other four, plus the Commonwealth scheme. That is not a technicality at the edges — it is the whole answer, and it is why a national rule of thumb is worse than useless here.

It is the state you work in, not the state you crashed in

Before anything else, work out which scheme you are in — and it is not decided by the road you were on. Workers compensation follows the state your employment is connected with, which is broadly where you usually work.

A Victorian worker who crashes while commuting in New South Wales does not get the New South Wales answer. A New South Wales worker who crashes in Melbourne keeps theirs. For anybody who lives near a border, this is the first question and it changes everything that follows.

Commuting is not the same as being on duty

The distinction the law actually turns on is between travelling to work and travelling as part of work. Driving between two job sites, out to a client, on a delivery, or anywhere else as part of the job is in the course of employment everywhere in Australia. No special provision is needed and no state has abolished it.

The ordinary commute is different. It sits in the gap between two periods of work rather than inside one, which is why it only counts where a statute says so — and why four parliaments have decided it should not.

That boundary matters more than it used to. If you worked from home in the morning and then drove to the office, you may have been travelling between two places of work rather than commuting, which is a different and better question. Under the Commonwealth scheme it turns on whether you actually did work at home before setting out — a question with a documentary answer in your login times and sent emails.

The carve-outs that survived, which almost nobody cites

Abolishing the commute did not always mean abolishing everything around it. Several states that removed ordinary journey cover kept it for travel between two workplaces, for travel to treatment for an existing work injury, or for travel to training the employer required.

And there is a trap inside that. Some states cover attendance at those places but not the journey there, which is the opposite answer on the same facts. Driving to a physiotherapy appointment for an accepted work injury is covered in some states and not in others, and the difference is not intuitive.

A deviation or a detour can end it

Where the commute is covered, stopping off on the way can take you outside cover — but the rules differ in shape. Some states ask whether the interruption was for a reason unconnected with work. Others ask the more forgiving question of whether the detour materially increased the risk of injury. A couple require the journey to be by a reasonably direct route.

The practical point is simply that it is a live question rather than a formality, and it is worth being accurate about what you did and when. Do not guess at times or routes on a claim form.

If the commute is not covered where you work

This is the important half, and it is the half that gets left out. A “no” on workers compensation is not a “no” on everything. You were still in a motor accident, and the motor accident scheme in the state where the crash happened is still there.

In Victoria the commuting claim goes to the Transport Accident Commission, and WorkSafe’s own guidance directs it there. In Tasmania the no-fault motor accident benefits remain available precisely because workers compensation is not payable — the two provisions interlock exactly. Elsewhere it depends on the scheme and on whether anybody was at fault.

What to do now

1. Tell your employer it happened, even if you think the commute is not covered where you work. Reporting costs nothing and an unreported injury is much harder to claim on later.
2. See a doctor and say where you were going and why.
3. Work out which state your employment is connected with — usually where you normally work, not where the crash was.
4. Lodge the motor accident claim in the state where the crash happened, separately, and do not wait on the workers compensation answer.
5. Get advice if you were doing anything other than a plain trip between home and work: a detour for the employer, a call-out, a second job, or a journey after working from home.