Driving in Chile on an Australian Licence — The Side Switch, an IDP & a 0.03 Limit

Chile is a road-tripper’s country — a 4,000 km ribbon from the Atacama to Patagonia, where the car is the whole point. For an Australian, the planning is easy; the re-wiring of your driving instincts is the part to take seriously.

The one fact that matters most: Chile drives on the right, and you come from the left. Everything inverts. You sit on the left of the car, you give way to the left at roundabouts (which now turn anticlockwise), and your reflex glance at a junction will point the wrong way for the first day. Pick up the car somewhere quiet, not in central Santiago, and stay deliberate at every turn and slip road until it stops feeling backwards. The Chile driving guide covers the local signage you will be reading.

On paper you can drive on your Australian licence for up to 90 days, but an International Driving Permit is recommended and worth the small cost at home — it is the certified translation that rental desks and the Carabineros expect to see. You cannot obtain one in Chile, so sort it before you fly; the Driving Permit Checker confirms exactly what your trip needs.

Watch the alcohol limit. Chile sits at 0.03, below the 0.05 you are used to, and tips into the serious “drunk driving” bracket at 0.08. There is no comfortable margin for a glass of carmenère with lunch — if you are driving, don’t. Roadside breath tests are common near the coast in summer and around the capital at night.

Speeds are signed in km/h: 60 in town, 100 on rural roads, 120 on the tolled autopistas. Those motorways are excellent and use electronic free-flow tolling — your rental will carry a TAG transponder, and charges land on your card automatically, so don’t slow for a booth that isn’t there. The real driving challenge is distance and emptiness: in the Atacama, fuel stations can be hundreds of kilometres apart, mobile signal vanishes, and the desert heat is unforgiving. Fill up whenever you can, carry water, and download offline maps.

Petrol runs around CLP-equivalent USD 1.35 a litre, a speeding ticket about 10 over is roughly CLP 38,000-70,000 (≈ EUR 35-65), and the general emergency number is 131 for an ambulance (133 for police). Run a likely fine through the Speeding Fine Calculator before you set off so nothing surprises you on the road.