On 29 January 2022, various updates were made to the Highway Code after a call from Cycling UK to improve road safety at junctions.
At Cycleplan, we decided to survey our policyholders throughout April 2022 to determine whether the changes had a positive impact.
This report was created using data from our in-depth survey sent out to 5,392 UK cyclists. They were from a broad geographical area, encompassing most of the UK.
Most respondents felt the changes for motorists had been ineffective since they had come into force. Many also believed they had not been properly enforced or publicised, leading to them feeling unsafe on our roads.
Almost a third (32%) of responding cyclists disclosed they felt unsafe on our roads at present, with many sharing their experiences of recent accidents or near-misses since the Highway Code changes were made.
Road safety appears to be a concern due to the behaviour of both motorists and cyclists on UK roads.
While 79% of respondents voted that motorists had not been abiding by the changes, 69% felt that other cyclists were also guilty of this.
This suggests that motorists are not the only party at fault, and there is a bigger picture to consider when looking at the failures of the 2022 Highway Code changes.
Staggeringly, around one-sixth (15%) of respondents were unaware of any of the individual changes for cyclists. This has serious implications for the road safety of both parties.
Our survey revealed that 85% of UK cyclists were aware the Highway Code was being updated on 29 January 2022.
However, only one-half (54%) of responding cyclists were aware of the individual changes to the Highway Code, suggesting they were not publicised enough at the time.
One-tenth shared they were not aware of the changes.
We gave respondents a list of the main individual changes to the Highway Code for cyclists and motorists. We asked them to disclose whether they were aware of these prior to taking our survey.
The results show that over half of respondents were aware of the individual changes on average. However, a large percentage were still unaware of each change, putting themselves and other road users at risk.
From our report, we can conclude that while the Highway Code changes rolled out on 29 January 2022 are ideal on paper, they are failing to serve their purpose when put into practice.
Here at Cycleplan, we feel confident that this is largely due to the changes having not been properly enforced or publicised.
Our report provides solid evidence to support this theory. While most UK cyclists claimed to be aware the Highway Code was being updated, many revealed themselves to be unaware of the changes and, therefore, a risk to themselves and other road users.
An AA poll found that 86% of motorists don’t re-read the Highway Code, further supporting the idea that a major public safety campaign is needed to ensure road users are fully aware of the changes and able to abide by them.