Royal Automobile Club of Queensland

The Royal Automobile Club of Queensland Limited (RACQ) is a mutual organisation and Queensland’s largest Club, providing services including roadside assistance, insurance, banking and travel to its approximately 1.75 million members.

RACQ is the largest provider of car insurance in Queensland and the second largest provider of home insurance.

The Club's bimonthly magazine, The Road Ahead, is Queensland’s highest circulating magazine, with 836,995 printed copies and 410,584 digital copies distributed each edition.^[1] An earlier journal of the RACQ was the long-running Steering Wheel (1915-1932) which profiled makes of cars and motoring personalities, and carried anecdotes of pioneering days, humorous stories, social gossip, as well as supplementary lists of Registrations.^[2]

In financial year 2020, the Club returned $167.1 million to members including $8.6 million in fuel discounts and $5.6 million in theme park, attraction and movie ticket discounts. RACQ provides free-of-charge road safety education programs to primary and secondary school students across the state.^[3]

RACQ is a member of the Australian Automobile Association.

Eighteen motorists formed the Automobile Club of Queensland in 1905 at a meeting of "almost all the motorists in Brisbane" which was held at the School of Arts, in Ann Street. The club was formed as an advocacy group, styled after the successful Royal Automobile Club of the United Kingdom. Of the eighteen founding members, ten were medical practitioners. Their belief that "autos" could be a reliable means for visiting patients was used to leverage a more positive image of cars in the public consciousness.^[4]

Dr. George Hopkins was voted to be the President, and Dr. Charles Marks was the first Vice-President. At the time of formation there were only 16 registered privately owned motor cars in Queensland.^[5]

In recognition of the club's patriotic efforts during the Great War, King George V approved the use of the 'Royal' prefix in 1921.

In 1925 RACQ Roadside Assistance was born when the Club commissioned two mechanics, George Clark and Eddie Henderson, to patrol the roads in search of disabled vehicles.

In the 1970’s the Club began to expand its services including the formation of RACQ Insurance.  

In 2011, following Tropical Cyclone Yasi in Northern Queensland and flooding in central and southern Queensland, RACQ Foundation was launched to assist community groups devastated by natural disasters.

RACQ was inducted into the Queensland Business Leaders Hall of Fame in 2014.^[6][7]

In 2017, RACQ merged with Queensland Teachers Mutual Bank, forming RACQ Bank.

As of 2021, RACQ provides the following services:

• Assistance – roadside assistance and home assistance
• Insurance – motor, home and contents, caravan, boat, pet, travel, life and income protection
• Banking
• Travel Agency

RACQ has also previously sponsored a broad range of events which sought to improve driver skills and promote road safety initiatives including:

• The All Schools Pedal Prix.^[8]
• RACQ Technology Challenge Maryborough.^[9]
• Older People Speak Out, Years Ahead courses.^[10]
• The Queensland Road Safety Awards.^[11]
• The RACQ Historic Motoring Council Rally (now MotorFest).
• The RACQ Insurance International Women's Day Fun Run.^[12]
• The Prevent Alcohol and Risk-related Trauma in Youth program (P.A.R.T.Y.) run by the Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital.^[13]

Free2go was a youth program initiative by RACQ designed to help learner drivers to get their licence and included roadside assistance.^[14] Utilising the online learner logbook, Queensland learner drivers could record their required 100 hours of supervised on-road driving electronically.^[15]

In 2011 RACQ launched RACQ Foundation to assist community groups to recover from natural disasters and drought. In 2020 the Foundation expanded its remit for a short period to include groups hit by COVID-19. Since 2011 the Foundation has awarded more than $9.24 million in grants.^[16]

The RACQ Air Rescue Network comprises RACQ Capricorn Rescue, RACQ CQ Rescue and RACQ LifeFlight Rescue helicopters as well as three fixed wing RACQ LifeFlight Rescue Air Ambulance Jets. RACQ has sponsored the network for more than 25 years.  

The RACQ International Women’s Day Fun Run is an annual event that creates awareness of breast cancer among women of all ages. It aims to inspire women and girls and to celebrate their achievements while benefiting Mater Chicks in Pink.

RACQ sponsors the ARTIE Academy Drivers Licence Program, which helps students receive their licence and increase their post-school options. By working with the Former Origin Greats the Academy aims to ‘Close the gap’ in education between indigenous and non-indigenous students throughout Queensland.

RACQ’s Education team present potentially life-saving road safety programs to Queensland students including their award-winning Docudrama program. The team also offer CashIQ – a financial literacy program designed to help year 11 and 12 students to make informed financial choices and looks at how those decisions may affect their long-term goals.

RACQ also holds its annual MotorFest event in Brisbane, where it celebrates the motoring heritage of the past, as well as current and future innovations in transport and vehicle technology.

The RACQ head offices are in Brisbane at Eight Mile Plains and 60 Edward Street in the CBD. The Club has 19 retail stores throughout the State.

In 2013, RACQ released its Mobile Member Centre (MMC) a “branch on wheels”, the MMC is used for exhibitions and trade shows, when not needed to assist members following large-scale disasters.

In 2019, RACQ launched the RACQ Mobility Centre of Excellence, the site was previously home to the Mount Cotton Training Centre and has since been utilised as a facility for driver training as well as a research hub for new and emerging vehicle technology.^[17] The 45-hectare site features a range of facilities including a road circuit, skid pan, 4WD track and conference spaces and is available for hire by third parties for events and driver training sessions.^[18]

In July 2015 the RACQ was the subject of a report on the Australian Channel 9 program "A Current Affair".^[19] Reporter Tracy Grimshaw outlined how the RACQ dismissed tow truck driver Murray French for breaking a road rule when he towed a wheelchair-bound handicapped person's car on a tilt-tray tow truck while the person was still seated in the car. The event was earlier reported by the Logan Reporter^[20] and BigRigs.com.au.^[21] Thousands of RACQ members and the general public signed a petition calling for the RACQ to reinstate French. On 9 July there was a protest at the RACQ office asking for French's reinstatement.^[22] The RACQ issued a response on their Web site disputing the information in the Channel 9 report and defending the decision to dismiss the driver.^[23] In a statement the tow truck driver cited the 5 people killed on the M1 while waiting minutes in their car after RACQ had been called.^{[citation needed]}

In February of 2023, ASIC commended civil penalty proceedings against RACQ in the Federal Court, alleging that product disclosure statements for several RACQ insurance policies were misleading as they included statements that certain discounts would be applied to customers’ insurance premiums, it was found that the discounts were only applied by RACQ to the base insurance premium, and not to additional premiums paid for certain optional extras.^[24] The proceedings which concluded later in 2023 found that RACQ had sent the misleading product disclosure statements on at least 5 million occasions between March 2017 and March 2022, resulting in approximately 458,746 customers missing out on an estimated $86,476,339 in discounts.^[25]

• RACQ
• The Steering Wheel. State Library of Queensland