I'm sorry I HOVen't a clue

Mid September and we were travelling along the R40 heading out of Nelspruit, the capital of South Africa's Mpumalanga province.  After driving over 4000km through five provinces, I had got used to the rules of the South African road, with four-way-stops, yellow line overtaking and flashing red robots no longer presenting any confusion.  However, this large freeway presented a new-one which I couldn't work out.

The inside lane on either carriageway was marked "HOV ONLY".  After much debate and speculation as to what HOV could stand for, we concluded that it was probably safest just to avoid that lane.  The best we could come up with was that perhaps "HOV" was the local equivalent of "HGV" - maybe this was a special lane for slower-moving goods vehicles?

I had completely forgotten all of this until last night when the Highways Agency tweeted a link to a booklet called "Know Your Traffic Signs".  I don't know why, but I clicked the link and sat idly scrolling through the pages of well-known traffic signs, until I came to an entire page on "HOV lanes" - far from being something unique to South Africa, they are found in the UK and throughout the world.

It turns out "HOV" stands for "High Occupancy Vehicles", meaning that only cars with a minimum number of passengers in addition to the driver are permitted - what would be known as the "car pool lane" in the States.  Having thought I was only confused in Nelspruit because I was overseas, it was a bit of a shock to discover that this is something within our own Highway Code, so I started to flick through the booklet and came across all sorts of new signs that I've never heard of, such as "Home Zones" and "Quiet Lanes".

I have held a driving license for just under 11 years, and in that time several changes to legislation and many new initiatives such as HOV lanes, Home Zones, Quiet Lanes and Active Traffic Management have been introduced, and I was none the wiser.  This begs the question as to how much of the current Highway Code drivers older than me will be aware of - according to Direct Line, there have been 29 new rules and a 50% increase in content of the Code between 1999 and 2007.

Is it perhaps time that some kind of regular theory refresher be introduced for all drivers?