Western Australia - Motorcycles and Helmets

  • Only Sikhs in posession of an exemption letter / certificate issued under previous law can ride a motorcycle without a helmet.

  • From 2000, the exemption provision was repealed.

  • The current law does not allow for Sikh to apply for and receive a exemption letter / certificate.

Road Traffic Code 2000

244. Drivers and pillion passengers upon motor cycles to wear protective helmets

(1) In this regulation—

protective helmet means a helmet that is, or is of a standard or type that is, approved by the CEO, for the purposes of this regulation, by notice in the Gazette.

(2) A person must not drive a motor cycle unless —

(a) that person is wearing securely on his or her head a protective helmet; and

(b) where any other person is riding or being carried on the motor cycle, that other person is wearing a protective helmet securely on his or her head.

Points: 4 Modified penalty: 11 PU

(3) Where any other person is riding or being carried on the motor cycle, that other person must wear a protective helmet securely on his or her head.

Modified penalty: 11 PU

(4) The provisions of subregulations (2) and (3) do not apply so as to require the wearing of a protective helmet by a person who has, for reasons relating to the person’s medical condition or for any other reason which the CEO considers sufficient, been exempted in writing by the CEO, on or before 30 November 2000, from that requirement.

(5) The CEO may at any time, by notice in writing to the person, amend or revoke an exemption given to a person under subregulation (4).

(6) An exemption given under this regulation —

(a) has effect from the time it is given until the expiry date ascribed to that exemption by the CEO and set out in the written exemption; and

(b) may be renewed for a specified period by the CEO.

[Regulation 244 amended: Gazette 9 Sep 2014 p. 3247; 23 Dec 2014 p. 4928; SL 2020/253 r. 28.]

Relevant links (e.g. Media, Academic Papers, Opinions)

In 1976, when Sikh motorcycle helmet exemption laws were passed in the United Kingdom, Western Australia was listed as one for the jurisdictions that already had similar exemptions along with Singapore and Malaysia.

The House of Commons

Speech on 28th January 1975 (extract)

Mr Bidwell: I am quite sure that the hon. Gentleman can be so assured. I think it would be wrong to withhold from the committee, anxious though I am to keep my speech short, that in Western Australia there is a similar law to the one we are trying to enact.

Second Reading at The House of Lords (extract)

5th October 1976

2.58 a.m.

LORD AVEBURY:

…

If one turns to the case of the motor-cyclists elsewhere in the Commonwealth, in States that have otherwise made crash-helmets compulsory, as in the United Kingdom, there has been an exemption for Sikhs. That is certainly true in the countries from which I have been able to obtain information in Singapore, Malaysia, Western Australia and in Saskatchewan. In Saskatchewan, the requirement that Sikhs should wear a crash-helmet was ruled unconstitutional in the Supreme Court on the grounds that it would interfere with the practice of religion.

Exemption letter issued to a WA Sikh in 1996

State specific Sikh motorcycle helmet laws: