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Changes To Highway Code Affecting EV Drivers

Jon Farmer

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The Highway Code: 8 changes you need to know from 29 January 2022

Quoting from the page.

Using an electric vehicle charge point​

For the first time, the code will include guidance about using electric vehicle charging points.

When using one, people should:

  • park close to the charge point and avoid creating a trip hazard for people walking from trailing cables
  • display a warning sign if you can
  • return charging cables and connectors neatly to minimise the danger to other people and avoid creating an obstacle for other road users

Rules that will change​

  • Rule 239 (Waiting and parking)

Does anyone know if you can buy a warning sign it refers to?
 
What is rule 239?
I'm more worried about the warning sign??

Warning Sign GIF
 
Its a bit daft if at a charging station. At home or work that's even a push as they should be expected.
But if its out of a window I can see it being suitable to use a warning sign (breakdown triangle perhaps).

It would be like putting a warning sign over the fuel pumps hose on a forecourt...

Then again we are living in a time where they warn you not to drink the contents of a battery...
 
To be fair, rule 239 is specific to parking by the roadside
"Rule 239
Use off-street parking areas, or bays marked out with white lines on the road as parking places, wherever possible. If you have to stop on the roadside:"
So you'd only need a warning sign if you were charging at something like a street lamp charger or trailing a cable across a pavement. In a bay or your house, it would be fine.
 
To be fair, rule 239 is specific to parking by the roadside
"Rule 239
Use off-street parking areas, or bays marked out with white lines on the road as parking places, wherever possible. If you have to stop on the roadside:"
So you'd only need a warning sign if you were charging at something like a street lamp charger or trailing a cable across a pavement. In a bay or your house, it would be fine.
I agree what you say at the end of you post, bay or house would, should be fine. But what gets me mad ( and I have seen this happen more than once ) is people coming out of a supermarket walking over cables that are plugged into cars that are in the charging bays at the supermarket, and I have also seen once or twice the Idiots trying to push a shopping trolley over cables as well madness, I can see one day someone tripping over and trying to claim against the EV owner who is doing everything right, and I don’t see any extra signage making any difference and just one other point is not illegal to trail a cable over a pavement or footpath ? I’m not sure
Les
 
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It's the 'may' part that amuses me on the nut warnings, on nuts. I would like to think my packet of nuts 100% definitely contains nuts!

The highway code changes are clearly to cover best practice and make it clear to the public at large that it's not ok to string charging cables up willy-nilly causing hazards to people, like those photos posted in other threads on this forum with taught cables across footpaths or vehicles parked fully on the pavement etc
 
Also consider that signs should be in multiple languages or merely graphic without words.
The rules changed a good while ago on the green fire exit signs with the running man generally seen above doorways in commercial and industrial buildings to highlight then escape route. FIRE EXIT is no longer on the signs and it's now just the running man and the direction arrow.
I suggest carrying a roll of red and white striped plastic warning tape in the boot and using lampposts and shopping trolleys as temporary bollards for attaching the tape to, and cordon off the area around the car while it's charging. A bit like how the police use their tape to cordon off a crime scene. And that really would be red tape.
 
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