Travel Tips

The Highway Code Throughout History

Whether you drive or not, we are all considered road users, whether we are drivers, cyclists, horse rider or pedestrians. The Highway Code is generally seen by everyone as the set of guidelines and laws that determine the correct way to behave on a road.

Although in 1930 there were only around 2 million motorcars on the roads, there were over 7000 deaths from car accidents. When you compare that to the 2006 statistics, (20 million cars, 3200 deaths from car accidents) it seems that road deaths were staggeringly high.

The government of the 30′s obviously wanted to do something about this, so the Highway Code was created. This original version was 24 pages long and contained advice about driving a horse and carriage. So you can see, the Code has had many changes made to it over the years.

This original version contained no reference to driving under the influence of alcohol or fatigue, contained nothing on braking distances and no road signs. In fact, of the mere fifteen road signs that were published in the second edition (1946), we only use two of them to this date.

The 1946 version was the first to include many things, such as the very early days of measuring braking distances which were displayed in the form of a dull chart. They didn’t use images to to portray braking distances until the 1954 version. Also in the 1954 version, there were 16 new roadsigns, putting the total number up to 31, which really isn’t a lot when compared to today’s 170.

The sixth edition was out in 1968 which included 3D images and photographs to show stopping distance. The 1978 version contained these as well. It also contained the Green Cross Code for pedestrians and orange badges for disabled people. Due to a huge increase in car crime, the government made an update on this version to so that it contained advice on how to keep your car secure.

Then, the theory driving test was introduced in The 90′s, along with an update to the Code to include the information that new drivers need to pass it, hence this has now become part of the code itself.

So over the 78 or so years that the highway code has existed, it has become the main resource for road law, guidelines and advice. Of course one of the newest laws to be added being that you cannot use mobile phones while driving. This shows that the Highway Code is as adaptable to change as the society we live in.

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