Seven Australian jurisdictions have a separate hazard perception test: New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia, Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory. The Northern Territory licensing path lists a theory test, supervised driving and a practical test, with no separate computer HPT. Each position comes from the responsible agency's own pages.
Start with the national hazard perception comparison. Each jurisdiction then has its own HPT guide: New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia, Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory. Each one carries the exact agency sources behind its format, fee and place in the licensing sequence.
Hazard perception testing sits between the knowledge test and provisional licensing in the seven jurisdictions that use a separate HPT. It measures something a multiple choice road rules test cannot: whether you recognise a developing problem early enough to respond. The formats vary considerably, and this site does not host the official video clips.
Where does the hazard perception stage sit?
The larger difference is where the stage sits, not only how many clips appear. Every separate HPT below must be passed before the learner reaches the practical or provisional step named by the agency, but the minimum learner period and delivery method differ.
In New South Wales the Hazard Perception Test uses 15 scored touch screen videos after 2 practice videos. Learners under 25 can sit it after holding a learner licence for at least 10 months, while those aged 25 or over can sit it when ready. It must be passed before the Driving Test for a provisional P1 licence. The sitting is at a Service NSW centre, costs $58 for each attempt from 1 July 2026, and a pass is valid for 15 months. Transport for NSW does not publish a numeric pass mark.
Victoria requires a current learner permit and a minimum age of 17 years and 11 months. Its HPT has 25 videos and up to 45 minutes, online through myVicRoads or at a customer service centre. The first online attempt is free. The VicRoads fee pages disagree on whether a later online attempt costs $22.10 or $20.70, so both figures remain visible rather than choosing one. An in-person sitting is $44.00 in total.
Queensland hazard perception is a separate online test, not part of PrepL. It becomes available after 6 months on a learner licence and must be passed before booking the practical test. It uses 25 computer generated videos, takes about 15 to 30 minutes and costs $42.70 as at 1 July 2026. Practice is available after enrolment, but the agency does not publish a separate public practice URL. Our Queensland PrepL guide covers the earlier official course.
Western Australia places the HPT at Step 5, after the Computerised Theory Test and after logged driving has started, but before the Practical Driving Assessment. A car learner must be at least 16 years and 6 months old and have held the permit for at least 6 months. The Department of Transport and Major Infrastructure lists $29.90 for the first sitting and $24.10 for each resit. It does not state a clip count or numeric pass mark.
What does hazard perception cost in each system?
Read the next lines as a comparison, one jurisdiction at a time. Each line names the stage, where it sits and the fee the agency record confirms. The wider state by state comparison puts the rest of each licensing sequence beside these facts.
New South Wales: $58 for each attempt at a Service NSW centre, before the Driving Test for a P1 licence. Victoria: first online attempt free, later online fee stated as $22.10 on one current VicRoads page and $20.70 on another, and $44.00 for an in-person sitting. The current Victorian practical test total is $75.30, while the in-person learner permit test and appointment total is $50.80; neither is an HPT fee. Queensland: $42.70 for up to 12 months of online access, after 6 months on a learner licence and before the practical test.
Western Australia: $29.90 for the first sitting and $24.10 for each resit, at a Department of Transport and Major Infrastructure service centre or regional agent. South Australia: $37, as listed on the SA.GOV.AU hazard perception test page. Paying the $37 online through mySAGOV gives 12 months from enrolment and as many online attempts as needed at no additional cost. At the Service SA centres that offer the test in person, the $37 test fee is charged for each attempt.
Tasmania: free online HPT with free immediate reattempts. It can be sat from 3 months before the earliest P1 practical assessment date and must be passed before that assessment is booked. It is the only jurisdiction in the checked record with a confirmed numeric HPT pass mark, 13 correct out of 25.
Australian Capital Territory: online after 3 months on an ACT learner licence. The first attempt is free and each later attempt is $27.90. A first fail creates a 24 hour lock-out and a second fail creates a three day lock-out. Northern Territory: no separate computer HPT is listed in the current learner licensing path.
What does a correct touch actually score?
A hazard perception test is not a spot the danger puzzle. It measures timing: whether you respond once a situation has genuinely started developing, and not before. Responding too early, to a car that has not yet indicated or a pedestrian who has not yet moved toward the kerb, scores no better than responding too late. Touching after a parked car has already pulled out rewards a reaction that would already be too late on the road.
The New South Wales handbook and the NSW Government test page both describe the task as watching film clips from the driver's view, being told what the driver wants to do, and touching the screen if and when you think it would be safe to slow down, overtake or turn. Western Australia's Department of Transport page uses the same idea: click when it is safe to begin a manoeuvre or take action to reduce the risk of a crash.
No numeric pass mark is published for New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia or the Australian Capital Territory, so those entries remain blank in the checked record. Tasmania publishes 13 correct out of 25. A missing number is shown as not confirmed rather than filled from an unofficial source.
Worked cost: adding up the sittings in Western Australia
Start from the point where you have just passed the Western Australian Computerised Theory Test on the first sitting. That first theory sitting cost $22.40 on Department of Transport figures. Your logged driving still has to reach 50 supervised hours including 5 at night, recorded after the theory test and before the Practical Driving Assessment. Hazard perception does not replace any of those hours, and it must be passed before the practical assessment.
On the current Department of Transport and Major Infrastructure HPT figures, your first sitting costs $29.90. If you do not pass, you return on another day and pay the $24.10 resit fee, taking the two HPT attempts to $54.00. Because the agency publishes neither a clip count nor a pass mark, neither belongs in the calculation.
The HPT fee is separate from the Computerised Theory Test and the Practical Driving Assessment. Keep those stages as separate budget lines and check the official fee page before payment. A pass remains valid for 5 years, which matters if the practical assessment is delayed.
That arithmetic is why a fail is not only a delay. Western Australia's Practical Driving Assessment pass rate was 42.3 percent across 244,557 assessments at 22 centres, released under freedom of information reference 2026-0140, with Midland at 28.3 percent and Cannington at 56.4 percent. Our Western Australia theory and practical guide covers that sitting.
What habit are the clips built to reward?
Underneath the timing window is a scanning habit. Experienced drivers move their eyes constantly: far ahead, near, mirrors, kerbs, then back. Learners tend to fix on the car directly in front. The clips are built to reward the scanning pattern, and that is the thing worth practising, because it is also the thing that matters once you are driving alone. A pedestrian who has looked over a shoulder at the kerb is a developing hazard. A pedestrian standing still, facing a shop window, is not one yet.
The best practice surface is the road itself, from the passenger seat. On any drive, name the developing hazards out loud before the driver reacts: the parked car with brake lights on, the kerbside pedestrian who has looked over their shoulder, the side street with a car creeping forward. Being early on real roads is exactly the habit the test rewards. Practise timing and scanning, never specific clips. Memorising that something happens at eleven seconds into a particular video teaches you nothing transferable, and the clip you memorised may not be the clip you are shown.
Do this as a short commentary, not a lecture. Name what you see, what it might do next, and what a safe response would be. If the driver then brakes or changes position, you were reading the same development. If the driver does nothing and the scene stays quiet, you were early: you treated a situation that had not started. That is the same error the test penalises.
Why can you not practise on the official clips?
The official hazard perception footage is protected material, and Aussie Learner does not host it. The public agency practice links are the right place to see an official sample where one exists. Victoria, Western Australia and the Australian Capital Territory publish public practice URLs.
Queensland makes practice available after enrolment rather than through a separate public sample link. Tasmania provides practice inside HPT access. New South Wales, South Australia and the Northern Territory records contain no public official practice URL. That distinction is printed plainly on the national comparison instead of turning a missing URL into a substitute clip.
New South Wales publishes the car Driver Knowledge Test question bank under a Creative Commons licence, but that permission does not extend to the HPT footage. The preparation advice here is therefore about scanning, timing and the official material, not memorising or reproducing a scored video.
What should you read before you book a sitting?
Do not skip the official preparation material your agency publishes. The agencies describe what their own test asks you to do and how its response works. For New South Wales, start with the HPT page and handbook. Victoria, Western Australia and the ACT have their public official practice links collected on the national hazard perception page. For Queensland and Tasmania, practice sits behind enrolment or HPT access rather than at a separate public URL.
A New South Wales learner still on the Driver Knowledge Test, covered on our New South Wales hub, should pass that first, then put the 120 supervised hours, with 20 credited for the Safer Drivers Course, to work from the passenger seat. On Transport for NSW figures, the statewide driving test pass rate in New South Wales is about 56 percent across roughly 150 test centres. Queensland's Q-SAFE practical pass rate is about 61 percent after a 100 hour logbook, according to Queensland transport data. Victorian drive tests passed at 72.2 percent across 492,504 tests from January 2024 to April 2026 under a freedom of information release.
Common questions
- Question
- how many clips are in the NSW hazard perception test
- Fifteen scored videos, with two practice videos shown before the scored part begins, as the NSW Government test page sets out. In each clip you touch the screen to show when you would slow down, overtake or turn. The sitting is at a Service NSW centre and costs $58 for each attempt from 1 July 2026.
- Question
- do you have to pay again if you fail the WA hazard perception test
- Yes. The Department of Transport and Major Infrastructure says a failed sitting means coming back on another day and paying again: $24.10 for every resit, after $29.90 for the first sitting.
- Question
- is the Queensland hazard perception test part of PrepL
- No. The Queensland Government describes a separate online car hazard perception test after 6 months on a learner licence. It has 25 computer generated videos, costs $42.70 as at 1 July 2026 and must be passed before booking the practical test. PrepL remains the earlier official knowledge course.
- Question
- what is the pass mark for the NSW hazard perception test
- There is no official number to quote. Transport for NSW explains the 15 scored video format but does not print a pass score anywhere in its official material, so this guide leaves the pass mark unconfirmed rather than borrowing one from an unofficial source.
- Question
- does South Australia have a hazard perception test
- Yes. Department for Infrastructure and Transport pages confirm an online HPT through mySAGOV and an in-person option at certain Service SA centres. It is required to progress from a learner permit to P1. The fee is $37. Paid online, it covers 12 months from enrolment with as many online attempts as needed at no additional cost; in person, the $37 is charged for each attempt. Those pages do not state a numeric pass mark or number of clips.
Sources
- NSW Government: Hazard Perception TestChecked
- Service NSW: Book a hazard perception testChecked
- NSW Government: Driver and rider licence feesChecked
- Transport for NSW: Hazard Perception Handbook (PDF)Checked
- Queensland Government: Car hazard perception testChecked
- Queensland Government: About hazard perception testsChecked
- Queensland Government: PrepL online learning and assessmentChecked
- Queensland Government: Licence feesChecked
- Department of Transport and Major Infrastructure: Sit a Hazard Perception TestChecked
- Department of Transport and Major Infrastructure: HPT practiceChecked
- Department of Transport, Western Australia: Take the Computerised Theory TestChecked
- VicRoads: Hazard Perception TestChecked
- VicRoads: HPT frequently asked questionsChecked
- VicRoads: Ls and Ps feesChecked
- Transport Victoria: Hazard perception practice testsChecked
- My Licence SA: Hazard Perception TestChecked
- My Licence SA: How the HPT worksChecked
- My Licence SA: Provisional licenceChecked
- SA.GOV.AU: Hazard perception test (HPT)Checked
- Transport Tasmania: Driving assessmentsChecked
- Transport Tasmania: Where to sit the HPTChecked
- Plates Plus Tasmania: Hazard Perception TestChecked
- Plates Plus Tasmania: HPT questionsChecked
- Plates Plus Tasmania: Novice car licensing pathwayChecked
- Northern Territory Government: Get your driver licenceChecked
- Access Canberra: Get your provisional driver licenceChecked
- Access Canberra: Practical driving assessmentChecked
- ACT Safe Plates Testing: Hazard Perception TestChecked