The Highway Code is widely known by many as the set of laws and guidelines that govern the way we all use the roads, whether you are a pedestrian, a driver, a cyclist, a horse rider, or any other kind of road-user.

Around a decade the motorcar was born, there were two million of them on the roads and in 1930 there were around 7300 deaths by road accidents. Considering that in 2006 there were around 3000 deaths by road accidents and over 20 million cars on the road, the 1930 statistics needed sorting out.

The government of the day knew that they needed to do something about this, thus the Highway Code was born. Now nearly 80 years old, it has had a lot of changes made to it over the years considering that the original version of the Code contained information about things like what actions to take when driving your carriage and horses, and was only 24 pages long!

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.

Stopping distances however, did not get a mention until the edition that came out in 1954, along with a further sixteen road signs, bringing the total number to 31. When compared with today’s 170, its interesting to think what new signs might become commonplace on our roads in another sixty years.

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 version of the 90s contained advice and information about the theory driving test that had just been introduced. The information that new drivers are required to learn in order to pass their theory test 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.