Louise Gardner, Senior Associate in the Serious Injuries Team, reflects on her 29 January 2024 blog, a year on and seeks to understand has public awareness of the changes increased.
Significant updates were introduced to the Highway Code in January 2022. These changes aimed to improve road safety for all, particularly the most vulnerable users including pedestrians, cyclists and horse riders.
However, more than three years on, public awareness appears to be lower than it should be.
At the heart of the revisions is the introduction of a Hierarchy of Road Users. This concept underpins the updated Code and places greater responsibility on those who operate vehicles capable of causing the most harm.
The hierarchy prioritises:
- Pedestrians
- Cyclists
- Horse riders
- Motorcyclists thereafter,
- Cars and taxis
- Vans and minibuses
- Large passenger and heavy goods vehicles
This approach doesn’t remove responsibility from more vulnerable users, but it does place a greater duty of care on those operating larger, potentially more dangerous vehicles.
The changes mean that there are a number of every day changes to road use that need to be borne in mind and applied, and most notably:
- Pedestrian priority: Previously, motorists were only required to give way to pedestrians already crossing a junction. Now, drivers must give way if pedestrians are waiting to cross. This subtle but significant change is intended to increase safety and encourage walking.
- Safe passing distances: Motorists are now advised to leave at least 1.5 metres when overtaking cyclists at speeds of up to 30mph, and, more space when overtaking at higher speeds or when passing horse riders or pedestrians in the road.
- Cyclist positioning: Cyclists are advised to ride in the centre of the lane in certain conditions for example, on quieter roads or approaching junctions. While this may feel counterintuitive to some drivers, it’s intended to prevent unsafe overtaking and improve cyclist visibility.
Despite the safety-driven intent of these changes, a recent survey commissioned by UKROEd, the body overseeing the National Driver Offender Retraining Scheme, revealed that only 30% of respondents were aware of the new Highway Code changes.
Their research also found that only 18% of people aged 17 to 24 (including a large number of new drivers) had read up on the changes at all. This age group are statistically more likely to be involved in road traffic collisions.
Research undertaken in late 2023 by Tier, the world’s largest shared micro mobility operator, suggested in their survey that 25% of drivers did not know the correct rules on pedestrian and cyclist priority.
This suggests, just over one year later, that there is some increased awareness, but not enough given the potentially catastrophic consequences of getting these rules of the road wrong.
The limited wider awareness of these changes undermines the safety benefits the changes were designed to promote.
For those working in the legal profession, particularly in personal injury, understanding the updated Highway Code will provide valuable context when reviewing evidence, assessing and advising clients on liability, particularly when cases involve vulnerable road users.
Discussion on the rules for cyclists and road users perceptions of these rule changes were discussed in Adam Flemming’s BBC4 Antisocial Podcast in April 2024.
Our Serious Injury team specialise in supporting injured people and their families after catastrophic road traffic collisions where, sadly, ignorance of these rules can cause life changing injury.
