Going back to the then proposed change in the wording of the HC, which was (thankfully) successfully opposed & defeated, the wording was going to be changed, IIRC, to something that was pretty much saying that where cycle facilites were provided you should use them as they would make your journey safer, yadda, yadda, yadda. The reason for outcry was that although it wasn't a change of law, the HC carries weight in determining liability/rights/wrongs/supposed best practice. From the HC itself:-
"Although failure to comply with the other rules of the Code will not, in itself, cause a person to be prosecuted, The Highway Code may be used in evidence in any court proceedings under the Traffic Acts (see 'The road user and the law') to establish liability. This includes rules which use advisory wording such as ‘should/should not’ or ‘do/do not’. "
Hence the outcry from many a cyclist & cycling organisation aty the time, as it would have effectively put the 'blame' for their demise if cyclist was hit by car... "should have used the cycle path" "should have been in the cycle lane" and the like would have arisen... and errant motorists would have found it even easier to get out of their responsibilities.
You can see it now, in court... lawyer for the defence of the poor innocent, poor, put-upon, law-abiding, road-tax paying motorist and why aren't police out catching real criminals, who wasn't looking where he was going when driving, who say, ran into the back of some poor schmuck cycling along...
"But m'lord, it is not the fault of my client, a fine upstanding member of the community who, if he loses his licence, will lose his job, his home, his children as his wife will run off with the milkman.. it is the fault of that scourge of civilisation, the Lycra Lout, who is entirely repsonsible for his current state of quadraplegia, as he chose to cycle on the road when there was a perfectly acceptable cycle lane over there .. somewhere... and if only he had been prepared to use that, my client would not have run accidentally into the back of him. And undoubtedly that villian wearing padded pants to make his genitalia look like a baboon in heat as he sat astride some luridly coloured carbon fibre pedal cycle, thus frightening the delicate minds of young children and fragrant virgins of the parish, will also jump red lights! He deserves his fate!"
You get my long-winded drift.