Tax & Road Rules

Road rules in the UK: what the law requires and what the Highway Code advises

Most of what a driver needs to know on a given day is in the Highway Code, and the Code is careful about the difference between a rule you must follow, marked in capitals and backed by an Act or regulation, and advice it recommends. These guides keep that distinction: where a sentence says must, the rule number and the law behind it are given; where it says should, it is the Code's advice and is labelled as such.

The section covers the rules that come up on ordinary days rather than in the theory test: temporary road closures for parades and events, where you may and may not park when the usual spaces are gone, what a Penalty Charge Notice is and how the early-payment discount works, when fog lights are compulsory and when they are forbidden, and the signals from police officers, traffic officers and marshals that you must obey. Every rule is quoted from the GOV.UK Highway Code pages as read on the day the guide was written.

Rules are only half of staying out of trouble; the other half is the car. A vehicle in a dangerous condition is an offence in itself, and the MOT record is the public account of what has been found on any car since 2005. Our free car check shows that history for any UK registration.