Sharing the road with pedestrians and cyclists: the rules, read in order

On 29 January 2022 the Highway Code acquired three rules at the very front of it — H1, H2 and H3, printed in the introduction rather than among the numbered rules. They are the clearest thing any instrument read here says about what changes for a driver when the other party is on foot or on a bicycle, and most people driving today learned before they existed. This piece reads them in the Code’s order, with the other markets’ answers beside.

What is being read is a code — a published document, quoted from the pages that carry it. Nothing here is a specimen, a composite, or a form invented to illustrate a point. Words in quotation marks are the instruments’ own, capitals included; where one says nothing on a point, the silence is reported rather than filled in.

One passage decides what the H rules are worth. Rules using «MUST» or «MUST NOT» are legal requirements and cite the legislation creating the offence. About the rest, the introduction says that failure to comply «will not, in itself, cause a person to be prosecuted», but that the Code «may be used in evidence in any court proceedings … to establish liability», including «rules which use advisory wording such as ‘should/should not’». That is why advisory rules belong in an insurance article.

H1 — who bears the responsibility

H1 states the principle: «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». It closes the loop at once: «None of this detracts from the responsibility of ALL road users … to have regard for their own and other road users’ safety.»

The asymmetry is tied to capacity for harm rather than to who was right. What H1 leaves undefined is everything a claim would want: no percentage, no test, no threshold, no sanction of its own. The duty carrying a law sits elsewhere, in rule 144’s «MUST NOT … drive without due care and attention»; rule 204 repeats the principle in the body of the Code, the only sign of the weight it is meant to carry.

H2 — the junction, and the person who is only waiting

H2’s first line is the change: «At a junction you should give way to pedestrians crossing or waiting to cross a road into which or from which you are turning.» Waiting is enough. The rule then separates obligation from advice: «You MUST give way to pedestrians on a zebra crossing, and to pedestrians and cyclists on a parallel crossing», but «You should give way to pedestrians waiting to cross a zebra crossing». Rule 170 adds that once they have started, «they have priority, so give way».

Spain starts from the opposite end. Article 65.1 gives drivers priority over pedestrians «salvo en los casos siguientes» — except at signed crossings, and «Cuando vayan a girar con su vehículo para entrar en otra vía y haya peatones cruzándola, aunque no exista paso para éstos». That is H2’s junction rule almost exactly, unmarked crossings included, but it attaches to a pedestrian who is crossing; the person at the kerb is not named. Article 124 leaves that person a duty of their own: at a marked crossing they have priority, but should step out only «cuando la distancia y la velocidad de los vehículos que se aproximen permitan hacerlo con seguridad».

Virginia’s § 46.2-924 is stricter in one way, narrower in another. The driver «shall stop», not yield, «when any pedestrian crossing such highway is within the driver’s lane or within an adjacent lane and approaching the driver’s lane», and a driver behind or beside that stopped vehicle «shall not overtake and pass» it. On turning: pedestrians crossing at intersections «shall at all times have the right-of-way over vehicles making turns into the highways being crossed». Again, the person who has not started is not in it. Three codes, one duty, and a real disagreement about the kerb.

H3 — the cyclist going straight on

H3 addresses drivers and motorcyclists only, and names the geometry: «You should not cut across cyclists … 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.» Then the test: «Do not turn at a junction if to do so would cause the cyclist … going straight ahead to stop or swerve.»

In left-hand traffic that is the left hook: you turn left, the cyclist is going straight on up your nearside, and the turn closes across them. Mirror the road and it is the right hook — in every right-hand market the cyclist is up the kerbside on your right and the turn closes the same triangle. The Code’s caption to rule 182 is one line, «Do not cut in on cyclists», and rule 211 adds the manoeuvre across a queue, where the rider is «on the inside of the traffic you are crossing».

Spain’s article 64 answers as a priority rule rather than a manoeuvre rule: cyclists have priority «Cuando para entrar en otra vía el vehículo de motor gire a derecha o izquierda … y haya un ciclista en sus proximidades». «En sus proximidades» is left undefined — wider than H3 on its face, since the cyclist need not be going ahead, and vaguer in the hand.

The crash simulator, opened on a right hook, is where the geometry stops being a paragraph. Change when the driver perceives the cyclist, and watch how little of the conflict is available to be solved late.

Rule 163 — the passing distance, and what it is measured from

The Code sets distances against speeds: «leave at least 1.5 metres when overtaking cyclists at speeds of up to 30mph, and give them more space when overtaking at higher speeds», and «at least 2 metres of space and … a low speed when passing a pedestrian who is walking in the road». The department’s summary of the 2022 changes adds the part drivers forget: wait behind, and do not overtake at all if the clearance cannot be met.

Spain’s article 85.4, in the redaction in force, requires outside built-up areas that «la separación lateral no será inferior a 1,50 metros»; in town it asks only for «un margen lateral de seguridad proporcional a la velocidad y a la anchura y características de la calzada». A later redaction extends it and adds a compulsory lane change on multi-lane roads from 1 October 2026; the consolidated text marks it «No vigente aún», so it is a future amendment, not law.

Virginia requires a driver overtaking a bicycle to «pass at a reasonable speed at least three feet to the left» and to change lanes where the lane is too narrow. Washington asks for a full move «into a lane to the left of the right lane» where there is one, and otherwise a pass «at a safe distance, where practicable of at least three feet». Four instruments, two numbers, one silence: none of them says what the distance is measured from, and the difference between a mirror and an elbow is most of a metre.

Rule 239 — the door

Here the Code prescribes a technique and explains the mechanism. The obligation first: «you MUST ensure you do not hit anyone when you open your door. Check for cyclists or other traffic by looking all around and using your mirrors.» Then the advice: «where you are able to do so, you should open the door using your hand on the opposite side to the door you are opening … This will make you turn your head to look over your shoulder.» That is the far-hand method the department, announcing it, said is «sometimes called the ‘Dutch Reach’». The Code does not claim it prevents anything — only that it turns your head.

The other instruments carry the duty without the method, and this was checked rather than assumed. Spain’s article 114 prohibits opening a door or getting out «sin haberse cerciorado previamente de que ello no implica peligro o entorpecimiento para otros usuarios, especialmente cuando se refiere a conductores de bicicletas» — cyclists named, no technique. Washington requires only that such a door not be opened «unless and until it is reasonably safe to do so». Rule 213 gives the other half of the zone: cyclists are «advised to ride at least a door’s width or 1 metre from parked cars», which puts them further out than a following driver may expect, and the rule asks that they be allowed to be there.

Rules 200 to 203 — the reverse

Reversing gets four short rules, the most operational text in the reading. «Do not reverse from a side road into a main road. When using a driveway, reverse in and drive out if you can.» Before moving, «check there are no pedestrians (particularly children), cyclists, other road users or obstructions in the road behind you». Then the sentence that concedes the problem — «Get someone to guide you if you cannot see clearly» — and one legal requirement: «You MUST NOT reverse your vehicle further than necessary.»

Spain converts that into a number: article 80 permits reversing only «con el recorrido mínimo indispensable», and as a complement to parking or moving off it «no podrá ser superior a 15 metros ni invadir un cruce de vías». What no instrument read here publishes is how large the space behind a vehicle actually is — the obvious authority is a federal one, its page refused the request, and no figure is offered.

What we cannot tell you

We cannot tell you whether the advisory rules quoted here count as a standard of care where you live: the Code’s own evidence sentence is about proceedings under the Traffic Acts, and nowhere else.

We cannot tell you what your own share of the blame will cost you. Whether a percentage of fault attributed to you merely reduces what you recover, or defeats the claim entirely, is the negligence rule in the data below — and it does more work than any other legal fact here, because a collision with a person on foot or on a bicycle is the one in which a driver is most likely to be found partly, rather than wholly, at fault.

What the reading leaves is smaller than the sum of the rules. The person can be on the kerb and still have the priority; the cyclist going straight on has it over your turn; the door is your obligation, and the head-turn is how you discharge it. The rest is detail attached to those three.