Rural Road Safety
Making rural roads safer for everyone.
Our aim is to make rural roads a safer place to be for anyone who lives in, works in, or visits the countryside - from motorists, motorcyclists and agricultural vehicle drivers to horse riders, pedestrians and cyclists.
Sharing the road. Respecting others.
We’ve teamed up with The British Horse Society, British Cycling and THINK! - the UK Government’s road safety campaign – to try to reduce the risks for all rural road users.
To help road users navigate the unique hazards of rural roads, we have worked with our campaign partners and experts to produce guidance articles on rural road safety.
We are now campaigning for a Code for Countryside Roads, to bring together expert knowledge and advice to make rural roads safer for everyone. To find out more about the Code for Countryside Roads campaign, click here.
Hierachy of road users
In January 2022, the Highway Code was amended to introduce a ‘hierarchy of road users’ where the greatest responsibility for protecting road users lies with those most likely to cause damage. The change also brought in rules to give vulnerable road users such as cyclists, horse riders, pedestrians and motorcyclists greater protection from motorists.
Despite this, the number of motorcyclists, cyclists and pedestrians who lost their lives on rural roads increased 5% in 2022, to 409.
Guidance and Advice
To help road users navigate the unique hazards of rural roads, we have worked with our partners to produce guidance articles on rural road safety.
Code for Countryside Roads
Our plan is to create a Code for Countryside Roads to bring together expert knowledge and advice to make rural roads safer for everyone. This will include feedback and advice from experts and groups to provide a clear guide to how people should use rural roads. We invite customers, members of the public and experts to get in touch with us to contribute to the Code for Countryside Roads document and we hope that once published, this will help steer a course towards safer rural roads for all road users.