History of the Highway Code

The Highway Code comprises rules, advice, and guidelines for all road users in England, Scotland, and Wales. It aims to promote road safety and is essential reading for everyone with hundreds of thousands of copies sold each year.

While the Highway Code in itself is not a legally binding document, not abiding by its rules can be referenced in court to establish liability in the event of an accident, so it’s certainly a text you’d want to add to your library!

Its origins of the Highway Code date back to the year 1920, when the ‘Departmental Committee on the Regulation of Motor Vehicles’ announced a need for a:

This was in response to the growing number of London motorists developing a system of using hand gestures whilst driving to indicate their intentions to turn right or stop. This system was noticed and observed as quite beneficial!

The first edition of the Highway Code was published in 1931 and consisted of only 18 pages. When it was circulated, there were only 2.3 million motor vehicles in the UK. Despite this, over 7,000 people were killed in accidents annually, highlighting a real need for a centralised guideline for a standardised code of behaviour across the country.

In 1934, illustrations for road signs were added and through the years, further revisions expanded the text further, including the acknowledgment of motorways in the fifth edition and the addition of photographs in 1968.

Over the years, the Highway Code has grown in size and scope; it covers a variety of topics from vehicle maintenance to advice when driving with pets. It has been regularly revised to reflect the changes in road safety requirements, and the needs of road users. As technology develops, it has widened its scope to provide guidance for the use of electric cars and autonomous vehicles.

To conclude, the Highway Code is essential reading for all road users in the UK. It has a rich history dating back to the 1920s and was developed to meet the needs for road safety as society and technology evolved through the years. According to the DVLA, it is one of the few books printed that can lay claim to having saved thousands of lives.

You can read the highway code here.

Also, feel free to read our blog on two little-known highway code rules.