Britain’s drivers lack driving law awareness, study shows

Survey reveals lack of awareness causing drivers to take risks and make dangerous decisions

Britain’s drivers lack driving law awareness, study shows
Image: Bigstock.

Britain’s drivers lack awareness of UK driving laws, a new survey conducted by Warranty Direct suggests.

Areas of particular weakness include understanding road safety, general vehicle rules and interpretation of The Highway Code.

A report from the Department for Transport, recently revealed there were 195,576 reported driving accidents, resulting in 78,683 casualties in 2014.

Awareness regarding motorway driving in particular produced some troubling results in the survey.

A quarter of respondents thought it was legal to both overtake and undertake on the motorway, and nearly a third think you’re allowed to pull over and sleep on the hard shoulder if you can’t find a rest stop.

Half of drivers thought it was fine to flash your lights to warn fellow drivers of a speed trap, in spite of a well-publicised case in 2011 of a man being fined £440 for doing so and in turn being accused of ‘obstructing the police’.

According to 32 per cent of respondents the national single carriageway speed limit in the UK is 70mph, which means over a third of drivers may be breaking the speed limit, without even realising it.

When presented with a selection of ‘real’ and ‘fake’ driving laws just four out of the ten genuine driving laws were spotted by more than 50 per cent of respondents, and a high proportion of the public were also fooled into believing that a number of false laws were true.

These included having to notify the DVLA if you change your name, but not your gender and thinking you have to be able to read a post-2001 licence plate from 10 metres away, when it’s actually 20 metres.

Chief operating officer at Warranty Direct, Philip Ward said: “Our latest survey reveals there is a strong need for UK drivers to brush up on their knowledge of driving laws.

“The results suggest many mistakes made could be down to not knowing the appropriate laws, which can be easily rectified.”

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