Coo-ca-who? Alvin Stardust fronting a road safety advertisement.

"You must be out of your tiny minds."

The scolding tone of Alvin Stardust's voice as he dressed down two girls for not watching what they were doing when crossing a road still rings in my ears today. This public information film was on air when I was learning the Green Cross Code as a young child, and it surprises me to this day just how deep an impression a man with thick, jet-black sideburns, wearing one leather glove, can have on a child's sense of discipline and respect when confronted with a road.

But, in recent times, I have found myself starting to disobey the roadside manner imbued in me by Alvin. I now want to confront those metal menaces that force me back from the curb, in particular the drivers who wilfully ignore me by refusing to stop to let me cross when waiting patiently at a zebra crossing. I sometimes feel like quickly stepping onto those black and white stripes just before the car passes so that the driver's quickened pulse caused by suddenly reaching for the brake reminds them that they are not, after all, the sole user of the road.

But before offering myself up as the first martyr for the cause, I thought I had better just double check in the Highway Code who has priority when it comes to zebra crossings - the pedestrian or the motorist?

Here's the advice for pedestrians (my italics):

"Give traffic plenty of time to see you and to stop before you start to cross. Vehicles will need more time when the road is slippery. Remember that traffic does not have to stop until someone has moved onto the crossing. Wait until traffic has stopped from both directions or the road is clear before crossing. Keep looking both ways, and listening, in case a driver or rider has not seen you and attempts to overtake a vehicle that has stopped."

And this is what it advises motorists to do:

"As you approach a zebra crossing: look out for people waiting to cross and be ready to slow down or stop to let them cross; you MUST give way when someone has moved onto a crossing; allow more time for stopping on wet or icy roads; do not wave people across - this could be dangerous if another vehicle is approaching; be aware of pedestrians approaching from the side of the crossing."

I was pretty shocked to learn that the onus is, in fact, on the pedestrian to step onto the actual crossing, as opposed to hanging back on the curb but displaying an obvious intention to cross, before it becomes the responsibility of the driver to slow down, stop and let you pass.

The same rules apply to pedestrians when they intend to cross a T-junction, too. Again, pedestrians must actually step on to the road surface before the motorist approaching to turn into the junction need give way. "Watch out for pedestrians crossing a road into which you are turning. If they have started to cross, they have priority, so give way," is the exact way the Highway Code phrases it.

But why should a car turning off a road on which it is travelling have higher priority than a pedestrian continuing on in the direction of the pavement, albeit interrupted by the junction? There is a clear bias that favours the motorists over the pedestrian. (And I suppose somewhere in the middle is placed the cyclist.) The T-junction is assumed by the Highway Code to be a continuation of the motorist's road, as opposed to an extra crossing point for pedestrians.

Why should this be? If the government is keen to get us walking more (to meet both their environmental and health targets), as well as make our urban centres more appealing to use, then even quite subtle biases such as this just act further to cement the feeling among pedestrians that they really are the lowest of the low.

It seems extraordinary that four decades on from the publication of Professor Sir Colin Buchanan's seminal "Traffic in Towns" report for the ministry of transport, that we still give way to motorists without reserve. Whereas other countries, notably the Netherlands, have learnt from Buchanan's work and gone on to develop ideas such as the "shared street", where raised curbs are stripped from roads and each user is gifted equal priority, the UK still asks its pedestrians to wait meekly by the side of the road and bow to each passing car. If they do wish to cross, they must first physically place their foot onto the road surface - despite the human instinct to recoil when faced with the sight of a tonne or more of rapidly oncoming metal.

As Alvin said, we must be out of our tiny minds.