21 22

Awareness of the Highway Code

During early discussions the organisers of the Road Safety Campaign had decided that the Highway Code was to be the centre of the campaign. It was therefore important to ascertain the extent to which the Code was known. The remainder of the report is concerned with knowledge of and opinion on the Code.

All informants were asked if they knew of the Highway Code and those claiming knowledge were asked to describe it. Only those giving a satisfactory explanation were recorded as having definite knowledge of the Code.

Only about one-third of the sample interviewed were quite clear that they knew of the existence of the Highway Code. About one half were quite emphatic that they did not know of its existence, and 17% were so doubtful about their awareness of the Code, that it was obvious that it was not alive in their minds. It may be said then that some two-thirds of the population do not have immediately in their minds the advice of the Highway Code as formulated in the current booklet. Many of course will be aware from other sources of many of its precepts.

Table 21 shows that men are much more aware of the existence of the Highway Code than are women, and this is true at all ages. The older men and women are less aware of the existence of the Code than are the younger ones. It is interesting to note that the middle aged men are more aware of the Highway Code than younger men and it should be remembered that this younger male age group is much affected by call-up.

It will be remembered that there was little difference in the attitude of men and women to road accidents.

It will be seen that there are differences in the proportions in the different parts of the country who know of the Highway Code. There is however, no such trend from North to South as appeared in the attitude towards road accidents. Further some of the regions where the attitude towards road accidents was most serious have low proportions with knowledge of the Highway Code.

The awareness of the Highway Code in the different economic groups corresponds with the figures on the awareness of the dangers of road accidents. The upper income groups which were most serious in their attitude towards road accidents were also more aware of the Highway Code than others. However, a higher proportion of car drivers is to be expected in the upper income groups and this factor is shown below to be associated with knowledge of the Code.

The following table shows an analysis of replies by the informant’s usual method of getting to work.

It will be seen that a greater proportion of pedal cyclists have knowledge of the Code than those walking or using public conveyances. 49 of the 53 informants who get to work by private car knew of the Code.

There was little difference in knowledge of the Code between those with or without children.

In order to check the answer of those who said that they knew of the Highway Code, a further series of questions was put to these people.

The “Others” in Table 26 obviously includes amongst other people those supplied with the Code when issued with vehicle licences.

It seems that the proportion claiming knowledge given above i.e. 35% may be accepted as the measure of the general present diffusion of the Code.

23

Opinion on the Code

Since the decision to use the Highway Code as the mainspring of the campaign was taken before this enquiry was made, no attempt was made in this Survey to measure the effectiveness of the Code as compared with other methods of influencing behaviour. The following material is concerned primarily with public opinion on the Code as it now stands.

All informants claiming knowledge of the Code were asked “What did you think about it?” Informants without knowledge of the Code were handed a copy and given time to look through it. They were then asked this same question. The answers of both groups are given below.

It will be seen that the proportions making different comments are practically the same in both groups. Those claiming to have knowledge of the Code mentioned the need “of bringing the Code up to date” somewhat more, but this is the only noticeable difference in opinion. It is interesting that the views of those seeing the Code for the first time are so close to those of the other group, particularly since many of these latter people must have seen the Code some time ago. It may be assumed therefore that the residual opinion of the Code is as favourable as the first impression. It will be noted that in general there is a favourable opinion of the Code.

It seemed important to find out how this general favourable opinion was made up, and further questions were asked for this purpose. In particular an attempt was made to distinguish opinion (a) on the idea of a Highway Code (b) on the current presentation of the Code.

There was little variation in response from the different sex, age, economic or regional groups, with one exception. In the Midlands and Wales 14% of the sample answered “No” and a further 10% said “Don’t Know”. 24% in this region therefore did not reply in the affirmative. This compares with 11% of the whole sample. Now it will be remembered from Table 2 that in this region a much higher proportion than average considered the problem of road accidents “not serious”.

There is clearly overwhelming support for the idea of a code of road conduct. The next question deals with the current presentation of the Code.

Informants were asked to give one of two alternative answers. It will be seen from the table that in fact large numbers were unwilling to make such a simple choice. 81% of the sample agreed that the current presentation was a good way of putting over the Code but 48% were in favour of other methods as an alternative or supplement to the booklet. Only 14% of the sample were of the opinion that other methods of presentation alone were preferable.

This indicates quite clear support for the present booklet but, it must be repeated, this question affords no evidence at all of the effectiveness of the booklet. It merely indicates that there is no large body of opinion antagonistic to the current presentation. It will be seen that 56% of males compared with 42% of females are in favour of other methods of presentation, either as a supplement or alternative, and it will be remembered that many more males than females know of the existence of the Code.

In view of the special responsibilities of women for children this point seems worthy of attention.

In the regions support for the current presentation is weakest in London, Scotland and the Midland and Wales regions. It is also weakest in the upper economic group where there is the highest proportion supporting other methods of presentation as an alternative or supplement to the booklet. It will be seen from the table following that the upper income groups were more inclined than the lower income groups to support other methods of presentation, but even here not more than 21% of the group wanted other methods of presentation as opposed to the booklet.

Informants indicating that other methods of presentation should be used either as an alternative or supplement to the booklet were asked to say just what other methods should be used.

Some informants suggested more than one other method. It will be seen that films, school instruction and posters were mentioned by the largest proportions. It is interesting to note that nearly a quarter of this group of informants thought about the need for getting the Highway Code to school children, especially in view of the lack of special interest shown in the danger to children from accidents in other sections of this report. However, it must be remembered that the group able to suggest other methods of presentation obviously do not represent the general public but are rather those most alert to the problem of road accidents.