How The Highway Code Has Adapted To The Changes In Society

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.

Back in 1930 there were only around two million motor cars on the roads, and in that year alone there were well over 7000 deaths by road accidents. Which is really, a staggeringly high number of deaths, considering there were well over 20 million motor vehicles on the road in 2004 and only around 3000 deaths.

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.

The original version of the Code was very limited, but then so were the laws of the road in comparison to today so I suppose that is to be expected. There were no road signs when the Code first came out, and nobody had thought twice about driving after drinking, or when tired, so you can see, the Code still had a long way to go. Even among the 15 road signs that were included in the second edition (1946), there are only two that we use today.

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.

By 1968 we were on the sixth edition which included such visual aids as 3D images and photographs. There was a new version in 1978, which contained the Green Cross Code for pedestrians and introduced the orange badges for disabled people. A later update of this version contained advice on car security after a massive rise in car crime.

The Code was updated in the 90′s to include informational guidelines to new drivers about passing their theory test. This information was subsequently included in the code itself.

So the Highway Code has been with us for around 78 years and during that time has become the key resource for driving laws, guidelines or advice. The newest law to be added of course being that you can’t use mobiles while driving. This just shows how the laws of the road have adapted to the changes in society.

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