VIDEO: Highway? No way! UK drivers don't know road signs

A call has been made for schools to teach the Highway Code following a social experiment to see if experienced drivers could pass a test on road rules '“ 20 years after passing their driving theory tests.

The experiment shows Tracey, aged 45, and Lester, aged 51, failing a road quiz quite spectacularly.

Young driver insurance ingenie suggests that road safety knowledge, including hazard perception, could be significantly improved if introduced at an earlier age.

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Tracey and Lester were filmed participating in a live Highway Code test and both struggled with general road rules and frequently used signs.

Neither could answer questions regarding the National Speed Limit or the tread depth of a tyre, nor identify commonly used road signs.

This lack of knowledge was reflected in the results of a quiz hosted on the ingenie website,1 with 82% of those who participated failing to recognise national road rules and signs, and more than one third getting under a 50% mark. The assessment, based on a selection of questions taken directly from the modern theory test, showed how young drivers are at risk due to a lack of knowledge.

As a result of the findings, ingenie is calling for parents and schools to introduce under-17s to the Highway Code, along with hazard perception and driving theory, to give them a head start with their grasp of road knowledge.

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Richard King, ingenie CEO, says, “It’s worrying that even experienced drivers aren’t showing basic Highway Code knowledge, which every driver should have to keep themselves and other road users safe. If schools introduce the Highway Code and hazard perception to pupils before they even reach driving age, we can build an entire generation of better, safer drivers.”