On Friday 30th July, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps announced a £338m package to boost cycling and walking across the country.

The package, which includes funding to build hundreds of miles of high-quality cycle lanes and deliver walking schemes as well as changes to The Highway Code, is part of Government’s commitment to build back greener from pandemic.

PJA Chairman, Phil Jones, was instrumental in guiding the ‘Hierarchy of Road Users’ change to the highway code. The change will outline how responsibility rests with the road users who could potentially cause the most harm to others. For example, car drivers will be responsible for ensuring cyclists are safe, while cyclists will be responsible for looking out for pedestrians. Here Phil talks about the research behind the change, how it happened and what happens next:

This journey started for PJA with a trip to Copenhagen in 2015 with the then Transport Minister, Robert Goodwill, various people from DfT, Highways England and Sustrans, plus Chris Boardman of British Cycling.

One of the things that struck us all was the way in which drivers turning off a main road would stop and wait for a gap in the flow of cyclists across the mouth of a side road, before completing their manoeuvre.

On return Adrian Lord (Associate Director, PJA) and I put to British Cycling the idea of commissioning a study into why drivers did this – what were the laws and regulations, and how were they trained? British Cycling funded the study and we began by reviewing the law in Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands. We found that this principle was clearly set out in law and formed part of the syllabus and test for new drivers.

We then went on to craft a series of steps by which such behaviour could become a requirement in the UK. This is a really important problem to tackle, as more cyclists are injured at junctions than anywhere else and the so-called ‘left hook’ and ‘right hook’, where drivers turn across a cyclist going ahead, are a particular cause of casualties. We also found that there was no clear official view on who had right of way at a set of traffic signals between an HGV turning left and a cyclist going straight on – a conflict that has led to numerous fatalities, particularly of female cyclists.

Our report, ‘Turning the Corner’ was published in December 2016 and recommended three stages of intervention:

• Stage 1 – change the Highway Code to clearly state what the expected behaviour is at junctions; that the cyclist going ahead always has the right of way (just like any other vehicle).

But the Highway Code is only advisory, so further steps are needed:

• Stage 2 – change the traffic signs regulations to allow a simple road marking to show a cycle route continuing across a side road, establishing a legal obligation for the driver to give way
• Stage 3 – bring the UK in line with other countries by introducing a ‘universal duty to give way’ on turning so that this behaviour is legally required at every junction.

The report received substantial publicity and British Cycling organised a petition supporting the changes. This attracted over 27,000 signatures and led 5000 people to email their MP asking for the Highway Code to be updated.

This all paid off in 2018 when the then Transport Minister Jesse Norman announced a review of the Highway Code in relation to cyclists and pedestrians. Not surprisingly British Cycling welcomed the announcement.

DfT’s document setting out the possible changes didn’t just include clarifying rules at junctions – it also talked about a ‘Hierarchy of Users’ where more vulnerable travellers would be given some kind of overall protection by the Code.

The various stakeholder groups promoting active travel decided to form WACA (the Walking and Cycling Alliance) to establish a common voice responding to this significant opportunity. I was invited to work on a pro-bono basis with Roger Geffen of Cycling UK and Joe Irvin of Living Streets to develop detailed proposals for the changes to the Highway Code. DfT very much welcomed this initiative and pledged to work with us.

All three of us contributed to the draft changes; mine were based on the junction priority principles recommended in the Turning the Corner report.

In addition, I felt that the Hierarchy of Users envisaged by DfT was too imprecise – what was needed was a clear overarching statement of the behaviour needed to protect vulnerable users on the public highway. I therefore developed the ‘Hierarchy of Responsibility’, which as the final proposed wording in the Code says:

“…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 to me is the biggest change in the new Highway Code, and it was very gratifying to hear Grant Shapps, the Secretary of State for Transport, explaining it on the radio.

It took several months for the WACA team to develop the detailed content, during which time we spoke to numerous organisations to get their views – the RAC, AA, Freight Transport Association, disabled groups etc. By the time we took the final draft text to DfT in 2019 we had thoroughly road tested it, and it meant DfT were able to take it to formal consultation in July 2020 with only minor changes.

DfT received nearly 21,000 comments on the draft and it took them a year to consider them. Nearly 80% of respondents agreed with the new rule on the Hierarchy of Road Users.

DfT has continued to work very closely with Joe, Roger and I in finalising the wording of the Code to reflect the comments received, and I’m very pleased that the final document is largely the same as the one we took to them in 2019.

From here DfT’s plan is to lay the changes before Parliament towards the end of 2021, which means the new Code will come into force in early 2022. DfT is also planning a major communications campaign to inform road users – particularly drivers – of the new and changed rules. I’m continuing to represent WACA on the DfT working group.

The new Highway Code won’t be a magic bullet, and as we set out in Turning the Corner, more changes are needed. But it does represent a significant change in the way in which our roads should be used, and that can only make it safer and more pleasant to walk and cycle.

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