Opinion: UK government fails to protect active travel citizens

As the 1 year anniversary of the 2022 Highway Code changes approaches, it seems an appropriate time to revisit the changes, exploring how they’ve been delivered, and their impact on active travel uptake.

Of the 8 changes , here we’ll focus upon the 3 ‘H Rules’, those focused on ‘hierarchy of road users’ changes.

Rule H1, “… those in charge of vehicles that can cause the greatest harm in the event of a collision bear the greatest responsibility to take care and reduce the danger they pose to others. This principle applies most strongly to drivers of large goods and passenger vehicles, vans/minibuses, cars/taxis and motorcycles.”

Out in the wild, beyond paper-based guidance notes, what has actually changed on UK roads? I’d suggest little or nothing.

Can Rule H1 work in practice? Yes.

One example; Switzerland, with a blended, multi modal transport network, where car drivers are responsible for collisions involving other road users, until legally proven otherwise. Applied as law, this, naturally enough, radically changes how road users behave.

Why has it failed in the UK? Enforcement simply isn’t there. Neither is an ongoing, high visibility communication campaign, to remind, prompt and cajole change to long established and heavily entrenched previous regulation based behaviours.

Of Rule H2 – “At a junction you should give way to pedestrians crossing or waiting to cross a road into which or from which you are turning.” – how many pedestrians honestly feel confident stepping off the pavement, at a junction, as the 2022 Highway Code revision suggests is a safe or sensible course of action?

As a cyclist, Rule H3 would certainly have a positive impact…

“You should not cut across cyclists, horse riders or horse drawn vehicles going ahead when you are turning into or out of a junction or changing direction or lane, just as you would not turn across the path of another motor vehicle. This applies whether they are using a cycle lane, a cycle track, or riding ahead on the road and you should give way to them. Do not turn at a junction if to do so would cause the cyclist, horse rider or horse drawn vehicle going straight ahead to stop or swerve.”

… if it was how a significant majority of drivers and motorcyclists interacted with other road users.

Regrettably, it simply is not.

Why has this situation arisen?

Are we really surprised that 50 plus years of motor vehicle prioritised policy and regulation hasn’t be undone by a casual, non-legally binding, guidance note update being issued?

No.

Revisiting the process which lead up to, and followed, the introduction of the 2022 Highway Code changes, we can see failure of UK government at every turn.

Communication: Strategy and execution

If a commercially successful business was tasked with influencing significant, sustained, consumer behaviour change, this would typically see:

• Clearly stated, tightly defined, measurable, ‘success metric’ based set of target(s) and/or goal(s)
• A marketing and communications effort to be delivered across multi touchpoints
• Campaigns running a variety of pre-tested messaging, measured and adjusted for impact
• Messaging and imagery variability at different stages of the campaign cycle
• A calendar of blended activities, run across a defined timeframe, to achieve stated outcomes

How did UK government promote and publicize the 2022 Highway Code changes?

• A single, legislative, announcement
• Breakfast TV conversation from Ministers in the week either side of the announcement

The Independent reported that, “More than £500,000 will be spent raising awareness of changes to the Highway Code following concerns that many drivers do not know it is being revamped.”

Was the money spent?

If so, where, with whom, on what?

Anecdotal insight: I’m 100% the target audience – a car owner, and a cyclist – yet have seen nothing which promotes changes to the Highway Code beyond the popular media feeding frenzy in the week following the official announcement.

Quality of legislation: Fit to deliver the stated outcome.

“Is The Highway Code legally enforceable? Many of the rules in The Highway Code are legal requirements, and if you disobey these rules, you are committing a criminal offence. You may be fined, given penalty points on your license, or be disqualified from driving. In the most serious cases you may be sent to prison.”

However, not all guidance is legally binding. The ambiguity is where real danger lies. What road users “should” do, isn’t what they “must” do to comply with the law.

Clearly, in a confrontation between a motor vehicle of any size, the smaller, less well protected, road user is going to come off worse. Regrettably the 2022 Highway code changes have, inadvertently, further entrenched a ‘might is right’ situation. Stepping of the pavement, into the road – as the 2022 revision suggests acceptable – is either an act of (good) faith, or foolhardy in the extreme.

A substantial majority of drivers remain unaware of the 2022 changes to the Highway Code. I would suggest that failure to adequately promote and enforce these changes has made it more dangerous, not less, for those not in a motor vehicle.

Leadership: Capability to deliver essential societal change

Active travel (not the body, rather the concept), provides a window into wider failings of capability, to deliver meaningful, societally and environmentally essential, change. Joining dots with physical and mental health, air quality, environmental challenges, and quality of life, as a value differentiator in a competitive global labour market, there is little doubt that UK government has repeatedly fallen significantly short.

Active Travel England is an estimated £14.2 billion underfunded based on its stated mission. No other comment is needed to support a ‘systemic failure’ claim, laid at the feet of Westminster.

Frustratingly, nobody is being asked to reinvent the wheel here.

There are countless strong examples, pre and post COVID pandemic, of new mobility and active travel focused policies delivering positive infrastructure changes, resulting in sustained upswing in the number of  users. France. Spain. Italy Germany. Hell, there are even States in America taking the initiative, supporting a significant increase in eBike users. “New York added 28 miles of bike lanes in 2020, bringing the total number to over 1,300 miles.”

My question?

At what point does UK government become legally accountable for issuing dangerously ambiguous and inadequately supported ‘guidance’ which, if followed, in reasonable fashion, as a pedestrian, cyclists, scooter rider, or horse rider, significantly increases the risk of a collision? In a Health and Safety environment there is clear responsibility, and accountability. What makes active travel focused transport policy and delivery different?

Safety has consistently been, and still remains the number 1 reason why people don’t ride, or stop riding a bike as a form of transport, irrespective of where you source your data, or how you select your polling group.

Maybe legal accountability will drive action which government seems otherwise incapable of taking?