A driving instructor from far north Queensland is pushing for national laws enforcing 'T-plates' for tourists to reduce the number of accidents on Australian roads.

Stephen Lee of Port Douglas was inspired by a similar campaign in New Zealand, and has started a Change.org petition calling for tourists visiting Australia to temporarily display T-plates on their vehicle, while also being given a handbook summarising the road rules.

"After three months they must pass a written and road test to obtain a temporary Australian licence," Mr Lee told the ABC.

He said he regularly witnessed road accidents involving rental cars, particularly on the stretch of road between popular holiday destinations, Cairns and Port Douglas.

"We have a lot of crashes regularly up here where the overseas drivers don't understand our road rules — driving on the wrong side of the road, or not understanding roundabouts, intersections," he said.

"It's strange we allow people into this country that don't understand our road rules, but we allow them to get into a car and drive, yet we put so much effort into training P-platers."

He said it was not just lives and risk, but it was damaging to tourism in the region.

"The main problem is the road closures for two to three hours," Mr Lee said.

"You can imagine these tourists which are being transferred to the airport to catch flights and all of a sudden the road is closed for forensics and they miss their flight."

Stephen Lee says crashes involving international visitors could hurt tourism. ( Supplied: Stephen Lee )

Mr Lee's Change.org is also calling for overseas licence conversions to include a pass of the written road rules test.

"If you are someone from South Korea, for example, you can walk into police station and get an Australian licence without doing any kind of written or practical test," he said.

Mr Lee says he has the full support of other driving examiners in his area, and plans to use the petition to strengthen his submission to the Australian Senate Committee on Road Safety.

Statistics difficult to gather

A 2004 study into the safety of international visitors on Australian roads from Queensland University of Technology's Centre of Accident Research and Road Safety said data on fatal road crashes was hard to gather.

The only international visitors specifically identified in the mass-crash databases were those involved in crashes as drivers or riders of motor vehicles, the study read. Statistics did not account for international road users involved in collisions as pedestrians and passengers, for example.

"Nationally, international licence holders represented only 0.7 per cent of the total number of motor vehicle operators involved in fatal crashes between 1996 and 1999," the study read.

"However, a major exception is the Northern Territory, where in the five-year period [between 1998 and 2002], international visitors have represented over 13 per cent of total road fatalities and almost 8 per cent of total injuries."

It did, however, conclude international visitors were over-represented in crashes where disorientation was a factor, suggesting difficulties coping with an unfamiliar driving environment.

A 2015 investigation by Tasmania's Department of State Growth reported: "Road crashes are the most common cause of injury death for international visitors in Australia, and therefore of concern, however interstate tourists present a significant statistical concern."

It found between 2010 and 2014, interstate and international tourists accounted for 10 per cent of all serious casualty crashes in Tasmania.

The Queensland Department of Transport said there was no evidence to suggest overseas driver licence holders posed a significant road safety risk.

"Austroads research shows out of 4,144 fatal crashes for the 10 years from 2002 to 2011 involving drivers and riders in Queensland, only 1.2 per cent of those involved overseas licence holders," it said in a statement.

"We have no plans to introduce mandatory road rules and practical driving tests for legitimate overseas visitors."