TABLE OF CONTENTS Traffic engineering activity, particularly on the highway, is controlled by an enormous number of laws and regulations which, taken together, set out:
the rights of landowners;
the rights and responsibilities of road users;
the rights and responsibilities of the highways authority and, by inference, the traffic engineer acting on their behalf;
the powers of the police to enforce the law, particularly as it relates to traffic and travellers.
In the UK, legislation is formulated in a number of ways. Acts of Parliament or primary legislation provide the main source of the laws that govern roads and traffic. Often, however, Acts of Parliament only provide general and non-specific enabling powers. These powers allow something to be done, but without specifying the manner in which that thing should be done. In these circumstances secondary legislation, in the form of a Statutory Instrument, is required to give effect to the primary legislation contained in a Parliamentary Act.
A good example of this two-tier relationship can be found in the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984.1 This Act gives a highway authority the power to erect traffic signs but makes no provision as to the form or type of signs allowed. These have been subsequently defined in a Statutory Instrument SI 2002/3113.2
This two-tier system of legislation avoids detailed technical matters becoming the subject of an Act of Parliament. It also means that the legal requirements can be adapted more quickly in response to changing circumstances and technology, without the need to...
