"So long as it is safe to do so"

The introduction to The Highway Code says,” It is important that all road users are aware of The Highway Code and are considerate towards each other. This applies to pedestrians as much as to drivers and riders.”  While HGV drivers and car drivers will have read The Highway Code, horse riders and cyclists should have read it, and so too should have pedestrians, it is probably only the drivers of motor vehicles who actually have done so (and most only read it so far as was necessary in order to pass their driving test).

 

I’d go as far as to say that if you polled a random sample of a thousand non-drivers, you would be lucky to find ten who have actually read The Highway Code, even though everyone should be aware of it and abide by it.

Although The Highway Code is something that everyone has a vague awareness of, it doesn’t often come to the fore, except when there is some fundamental change, and fundamental change is what we have recently had.

Last weekend, a number of changes to The Highway Code came into force. There is now a Hierarchy of Road Users, ranked as follows:

1. Pedestrians
2.  Cyclists
3. Horse riders
4. Motorcyclists
5. Cars and taxis
6. Vans and minibuses
7. Large passenger vehicles or courier vehicles like buses and HGVs.

Fairly uncontroversial, that: Makes perfect sense, doesn’t it? Pedestrians are obviously the most vulnerable group of road users, although in some ways I’d think that horse riders are even more vulnerable than cyclists, after all a horse is unpredictable and its rider more exposed than a cyclist, but I guess that’s moot and a matter of opinion. This hierarchy may upset some cyclists however, as I’m sure we have all observed some who believe that they are the most important and entitled of road users.

 More contentious however, is the change in priority for pedestrians and drivers at junctions and zebra crossings. Drivers, motorcyclists, horse riders and cyclists should now give way to pedestrians crossing or waiting to cross a road into which or from which they are turning. Road users should also give way to pedestrians who want to use a zebra crossing. The previous rules were that pedestrians only had priority when they had actually started to cross the road.

I do hope that any cyclists who have become aware of these changes to The Highway Code take note and stop for pedestrians who want to cross the road, as I’m sure we’ve all experienced the cyclist whizzing past by a hair’s breadth as we cross on a zebra crossing. It would also be nice if cyclists refrained from cycling on pavements, except where mixed use is allowed, and where that is the case, give priority to pedestrians; that would be a novelty.

Naturally the change that requires motorists entering or leaving a side road to give way to pedestrians waiting to cross has provoked many people to voice the opinion that if a motorist turns into a side road and has to stop sharply to allow a pedestrian to cross, they are in danger of being rear-ended by a vehicle that may have followed them round the corner, and thus this new rule may cause more accidents than it prevents. That was my immediate thought on learning of the change, but I think (and hope) that the problem has been overstated.

 

One of the things about driving, or riding a bike, or simply being a pedestrian, is that our behaviour is ingrained; changing how we behave will take time, hence I’m inclined to think that there will not be vast numbers of pedestrians modifying their behaviour and stepping out into the road with the expectation that motorists will simply stop for them. I’d better caveat that though, since in my experience (and probably yours if you are also a car driver), there is, and has always been, a risk that a pedestrian will blithely step off the pavement and into the road and expect motorists to have predicted this and act accordingly.

Anyone who has driven for any length of time will have quickly reached the conclusion that every other road user is an idiot, likely to do something unpredictable and dangerous at any time, and that it is therefore your responsibility to be aware of that, to predict what they will do, and take the necessary action to prevent an accident. Having said that, I am of course not immune from making errors of judgement on the road, and when I do, other road users may mistake those for being dangerous or unthinking, even though I’m not,

If there’s one change I can certainly get behind, it is the one that bans the use of mobile phones for any purpose. The use of mobile phones for calling or texting was banned in December 2003, but as the number of functions on smartphones grew, this created a loophole as things like scrolling through social media, or taking pictures or videos were not expressly forbidden. Now, use of any mobile device is banned, except for hands free phone calls. Given how often I see other motorists looking down at their phones, engrossed by them and not paying any attention to the road, this can only be a good thing – assuming anyone takes any notice of it.

The Highway Code changes received remarkably little publicity until about a week before they came into force, and when they did appear on newspaper websites they were treated somewhat sensationally. Take this clickbaity headline from the Evening Standard:

 

Referring to the so-called Dutch Reach, in which a driver – or passenger for that matter – opens their car door with their hand furthest from the handle, the paper implies that failure to do so will automatically result in a fine, which is blatantly untrue. It is important to read exactly what The Highway Code says, which is:

 

The purpose of this is to make anyone opening a car door more likely to see a cyclist or motorcyclist and avoid them either riding into the door, or swerving to avoid it. Even before the change it was and offence to open a car door so as to cause injury, punishable by a maximum fine of £1,000 but that doesn’t make such a sensational headline.

While some people have reasonably sounded a note of caution about the changes to The Highway Code - there has been some hysteria in the media, as the Standard headline proved - but what it all boils down to is taking the rules and applying the caveat that appears in more than one place within the Code, which is that whatever you do, you should do it only “if it is safe to do so.”

The last couple of years of covid have proven that British common sense, so often praised by our politicians, is often in short supply, but The Highway Code is largely based on common sense, and if all road users were to apply it a little more, be more considerate to other road users, and apply the “if it is safe to do so” caveat a little more, the roads would be a much safer place. I’ll not hold my breath.