Not The Features Ed Blog: The Rules Of The Road By Marking the ninetieth anniversary of one of Britain’s most successful publications, Laura Brown dives into the history of the Highway Code in this week’s issue with a nostalgic look back at the rules of the road. First published on April 14, 1931, priced one old penny, the code has sold millions of copies and can claim to have saved many thousands of lives. As Laura points out, when it was first launched, more than 7,000 people were killed on our roads each year, despite there being only 2.3 million motor vehicles in the country. Now, with more than 27 million vehicles on our roads, that number of road deaths has been halved.