Since “liking” the Official Highway Code Facebook page I have been intrigued by some of the updates they send.
One of the most recent was Rule 15:
“PEDESTRIANS” (yes, all upper case) “Never cross behind a vehicle which is reversing, showing white reversing lights or sounding a warning.”
Now, when I first saw that I thought “that’s a bit sharp” mainly because of the use of capitals, but when I thought about it I remembered the times I have been trying to reverse out of a parking space in a supermarket car park and the number of people who just go merrily walking behind my car without a care in the world, although my reversing lights are clearly on and my car is actually moving out into the traffic lane.
It’s very frustrating, especially as occasionally there have been some nasty near-misses and the pedestrians always seem to look at me as though it is my fault.
So, now I feel like I could rightly say to them that the Highway Code advises pedestrians not to walk behind reversing vehicles!
However, I probably won’t, I shall just carry on reversing ultra-slowly and ultra-carefully, with lots of twisting and turning and using my mirrors to see every car, trolley and slow moving shopper who feels it is necessary to walk behind my car even though there is a risk of them getting run over, because ultimately, any accident may mean I lose my ability to obtaincheaper car insurance and I really don’t want that!
Image © thienzieyung via Flickr, under Creative Commons Licence