Strip road risk down to where commercial vehicles actually hurt people and you end up in a short stretch of the Highway Code: rules 159 to 203, covering moving off, overtaking, junctions and reversing. Most of it is guidance (“should”), but buried in it are legal MUSTs and numbers every professional driver should be able to recite. This is the vocational read of that section.
The headline figures first. When overtaking, give motorcyclists, cyclists, horse riders and horse-drawn vehicles at least as much room as you would give a car - and the Code now puts distances on it: at least 1.5 metres when passing cyclists at up to 30mph, more at higher speeds; under 10mph and at least 2 metres for horse riders; at least 2 metres at low speed for a pedestrian walking in the road. If you cannot achieve the clearance, you wait behind. In a high-wind or night-time situation you give more space still. For a 44-tonne artic, “wait behind” is the default answer far more often than drivers behave.
The hard legal line is rule 165: you MUST NOT overtake where it means crossing double white lines solid on your side, entering a hatched divider bounded by a solid white line, passing the nearest vehicle to a pedestrian crossing, entering a bus, tram or cycle lane during its hours, or after a No Overtaking sign. Rule 164 is the one written for us: drop back from large vehicles before overtaking them, because closing in blinds you and removes you from their mirrors, and never assume you can follow another vehicle round a long one.
The junction rules now carry the hierarchy of road users in plain sight. Rule 170: take extra care at junctions, watch for cyclists, motorcyclists and pedestrians, and give way to pedestrians crossing or waiting to cross the road you are turning into or out of - once they have started to cross they have priority. You remain behind cyclists and motorcyclists at junctions even when they are positioned close to the kerb, and you do not cut across them. Two items are pure vocational gold: watch for long vehicles needing the full width of the road to turn - your own drivers are that vehicle - and never trust an oncoming vehicle’s left signal until it actually turns.
The MUSTs at junctions are simple and enforced: stop behind the line at a Stop sign with a solid white line; give way to main-road traffic at broken white lines. Then rule 173, which might as well be titled “for long vehicles”: crossing or turning right on a dual carriageway, first assess whether the central reservation can shelter your full vehicle length. If it cannot, you wait and cross both carriageways in one movement. An artic with its tail across a live lane is not “mostly clear”.
Rule 174: you MUST NOT enter a box junction until your exit is clear - except when turning right and held only by oncoming traffic or other right-turners. At signalled roundabouts you must be able to cross the box completely without stopping. Length is the trap: a car can clear a box in a gap a 16.5-metre combination cannot, and yellow-box enforcement cameras do not grade for optimism. Drivers should be trained to hold back before the box until the trailer’s exit is genuinely free, not the cab’s.
Three rules, and the last one is law. Rule 200: do not reverse or turn around in a busy road - find a quiet side road or drive round the block. Rule 201: never reverse from a side road into a main road; using a driveway, reverse in and drive out. Rule 202 is the drill: all mirrors, check the blind spot behind, check for pedestrians - particularly children - cyclists and obstructions, then reverse slowly looking mainly through the rear window, remembering the front swings out, and get someone to guide you if you cannot see clearly. Rule 203 makes it statutory: you MUST NOT reverse further than necessary (Construction and Use regulation 106).
For operators this is a policy paragraph, not a poster: plan sites and routes to eliminate reversing, brief the reverse-in-drive-out habit, and empower any driver to ask for a banksman without embarrassment. The Code’s own phrase - get someone to guide you if you cannot see clearly - is the whole of the rule that matters.