Road Rules vs Road Safety Act

[FarSur81]

In regards to this
viewtopic.php?f=30&t=4392&hilit=road+rules+2017
And the fact I was at a friends house the other day and they were going on & on about rights, and government conspiracy's etc. (No wonder I drink)

So One point they did make was rules are not enforceable. They were referring to the Covid-19 rules and how they are not an act of parliament (Which I looked up, and there is some emergency act of parliament)

Q. Are the road rules 2017 actually enforceable, as in can police, local council hand out an infringement notice, fine etc under section something ?

Or can they only hand out fines, etc under the Road Safety Act of 2xxx ?

Thanks

[Hardy]

The Road Safety Road Rules 2017 are enforced by police or by VicRoads.
They are regulations made pursuant to s.95(1) Road Safety Act 1986. The starting point of arguing the Road Rules are not law is to dispute that they were lawfully made pursuant to the regulatory power set out in s.95 and Schedule 2, clauses 42 to 49.
Every day there are people in court defending charges laid against them for alleged offences against the Road Rules. I know a dozen lawyers in Melbourne who have each spent 20 years or more defending traffic offences and not one of them has bothered to argue that the road rules are invalid or unenforceable - and we'll happily argue about missing ticks in boxes, whether a carbon copy of a signature is actually a signature, etc etc. We'll find an occasion to have a crack at pretty much anything if it has the slightest chance of working and can create a good distraction.
I have never seen anyone argue in court that the Road Rules do not create offences, probably because it is an absurd idea. Schedule 2 clearly authorises the Road Rules to be made as regulations under the Act. Same goes for directions of the Chief Health Officer. The legislation makes it an offence to fail to comply with such a direction.

[FarSur81]

@Hardy
Thanks. I was just curious as they made a valid argument that it is road rules, not road safety act. I did point out to my friend that they would be enforceable, I just didn't know how.