Research shows that runners interact with fellow pedestrians as well as cyclists and vehicle drivers at times differently to those walking. This depends on physical design and infrastructure, and the embodied desire of the runner - who may be running for leisure, or sport, or transport, at different times and all at the same time. Most simply, running is typically at least twice as fast as walking, and approaching other pedestrians and other road users at this pace requires clarification in order to improve safety.

With as many as one in five adults running regularly in the UK (Sport England), runners are a visible and a daily feature of all our towns, cities and places, in rural and urban contexts alike. Yet the runner is absent, and largely invisible, in terms of transport and urban policy and in thinking about how we live and move.

That’s why we’re calling for explicit inclusion of runners in the Highway Code to give this  simple and intensely human act and the millions of people who run regularly, some recognition.