Highway Code Summary

What Is the Highway Code?

The Highway Code is the official guide to using the road in England, Scotland and Wales. Northern Ireland publishes its own version. It is written for everyone who uses the road — people walking, cycling, riding and driving — not only for people learning to drive.

Two kinds of rule sit side by side in it. Rules written with MUST or MUST NOT are legal requirements, and breaking one is a criminal offence. The remaining rules use wording such as should or do not. Breaking those is not an offence by itself, but the Code can still be used as evidence in court proceedings to help establish liability. Both kinds are worth learning.

How to Use These Summaries

Start with the topic summary. Each one pulls the main points of a Highway Code area into plain English, so you can see the shape of the topic before you meet it as a test question.

If a rule is not clear, check it against the official text rather than guessing. The official Highway Code is a core revision source. Use the official links at the bottom of this page whenever a rule is unclear.

Then practise. The theory test has two parts and you need to pass both; passing only one means booking and taking the whole test again. The multiple-choice part gives you 57 minutes for 50 questions and the pass mark is 43. The hazard perception part plays 14 video clips, is scored out of 75, and the pass mark is 44.

When a practice session shows up a weak topic, come back to that summary and read it again before trying more questions. You can practise theory test questions in your Theorio account.

Official Sources

These summaries are Theorio's own study notes. The rules and test details behind them are published by the government, and that is the wording the test itself uses — go to it whenever a rule matters.

• The Highway Code — full official text
• Car theory test — what the test involves
• Theory test — multiple-choice questions
• Theory test — hazard perception
• Theory test — revision and practice materials