Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps he has taken to raise public awareness of the update on smart motorways in the Highway Code, introduced in September 2021.

Improvements to The Highway Code to improve safety on motorways and other high-speed roads came into effect on Tuesday 14 September 2021, with the publication of a revised edition on the Government website: www.gov.uk/guidance/the-highway-code.

National Highways provided a news release to national transport correspondents, the road safety trade media, and driver and vehicle consumer press including quotes from the Roads Minister, Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) and road safety stakeholders. The news release generated more than 280 news stories covering the changes in a factual, positive manner, with many offering guides on ‘what drivers need to know’.

The Department pre-briefed influential roads and motoring stakeholders to encourage them to update their members, and National Highways wrote to stakeholders involved in the consultation to thank them and ask them to update members.

The DVSA sent direct emails to the driver, rider, and vocational training sectors, trainer bookers, professional drivers, vehicle operators, Highway Code email alert subscribers and learner drivers and riders, with nearly half a million people notified of the changes.

National Highways and DVSA published links to updated Highway Code pages on their social media channels, amplified by the Department across corporate channels, the THINK! campaign, and tweets from the Secretary of State and the Roads Minister.

National Highways also published a news story on its website and updated its pages detailing progress on delivering the Smart Motorway Evidence Stocktake and Action Plan, each linking to The Highway Code on GOV.UK.

National Highways recognise that making drivers aware of the changes requires more than can be done on the day of publication and is seeking out appropriate opportunities to further publicise updates, including:

• A communications campaign in Autumn 2021 to highlight the e-call feature, that automatically contacts the emergency services in the event of a collision, that is built into new cars;
• Raising awareness of using the emergency phones in emergency areas with timings to be confirmed, and about Red X compliance, currently planned to take place later this year;
• Referencing and linking to the new Highway Code in future waves of National Highways’ breakdown campaign, with the next one being later this autumn 2021;
• Referencing the new rules in National Highways’ continuing work to deliver the smart motorway evidence stocktake and improve drivers’ confidence in using smart motorways; and
• Communications around the next print edition of the Highway Code in spring 2022.