Vermont DMV Practice Test 2026

Not quiteCorrect answer: B — Change lanes before the intersection if it is safe, or turn right

A mandatory movement sign removes the choice: from that lane, only the movement shown is legal. Your options are to change lanes in time or make the turn.

Drivers who realise too late often go straight from the turn-only lane, which is both a violation and a collision risk with the vehicle beside them.

Not quiteCorrect answer: A — The crossing is at this location, not somewhere ahead

The arrow points at the crossing itself. Without it, a crossing sign is an advance warning; with it, the crossing is right where you are.

Read as a direction to steer, the plaque makes no sense. It is pointing at the ground, not telling you where to go.

Not quiteCorrect answer: B — Traffic from another roadway will join yours and both must adjust

A merge means two streams become one. Neither driver has an automatic right-of-way; both are expected to adjust speed and position.

Many drivers believe the merging vehicle must always yield. The sign warns both roadways; cooperating beats insisting.

Not quiteCorrect answer: B — Find another route — the structure ahead will not clear your vehicle

The figure is the lowest clearance of the structure ahead. Anything taller strikes it, and the sign exists because that keeps happening.

Drivers assume the posted figure includes a safety margin and that the centre is always higher. Neither is a safe assumption.

Not quiteCorrect answer: A — Proceed with caution, but you do not have to stop

Flashing yellow gives you the right-of-way but warns of a hazard or a cross street. The traffic facing the flashing red must stop for you.

Because it is flashing, drivers assume the signal has failed. Flashing operation is intentional, usually at quiet hours.

Not quiteCorrect answer: D — Remain stopped, because the red arrow governs the left turn whatever the through signal shows

Each signal head controls the lanes it is over. The red arrow stops the turn, usually because oncoming traffic has been given its own protected movement that would run straight into you.

Drivers take the biggest, brightest green in view as theirs. The green belongs to the through lanes; turning on it puts you into the path of the very traffic the phase was built to protect.

Not quiteCorrect answer: B — That colour is reserved for pedestrian, bicycle and school warnings

Fluorescent yellow-green is set aside for warnings about people outside vehicles. The distinct colour is meant to break through the ordinary yellow you stop noticing.

It is not a faded or unofficial yellow. The colour itself carries the message: a person, not a road feature, is the hazard.

Not quiteCorrect answer: A — Stay back — it needs the extra width and may close the gap on your side

A long vehicle must swing wide to bring the trailer around. The space that opens on its right is the space the trailer is about to occupy.

The gap looks like an invitation. Vehicles that accept it are crushed between the trailer and the kerb.

Not quiteCorrect answer: C — Traffic joins into its own new lane, so no merging is required

An added lane means the joining roadway gets its own lane. Nobody has to yield or change lanes, which is exactly why an unnecessary merge here causes conflict.

Drivers who treat an added lane as a merge brake or swerve for traffic that was never going to enter their lane.

Not quiteCorrect answer: D — The route to an airport

Here the aeroplane is a destination, so it takes the green guide colour rather than the blue used for roadside services.

The same symbol in blue would be a service; in yellow it would be a warning about low-flying aircraft. The colour decides which.

Not quiteCorrect answer: A — The orange sign warns of a temporary condition in a work zone; the yellow warns of a lasting condition of the road

Background colour is part of the message. Orange is reserved for temporary traffic control such as construction, maintenance and incident zones, so what it warns of was probably not there last month. Yellow marks a condition built into the road itself.

Seeing orange as just a brighter yellow. The colour change is the warning: the road ahead is not the road you learned.

Not quiteCorrect answer: D — The pedestrian — you must wait until they have cleared your path

A green light gives you the intersection, not the crosswalk. A pedestrian with the walk signal has right-of-way over turning traffic.

Drivers watch for the gap in vehicle traffic and complete the turn without ever looking right at the crosswalk they are crossing.

Not quiteCorrect answer: A — It is regulatory: the movement it shows is required by law, not merely suggested

Colour tells you the category before you read a word. Black on white is the regulatory pair, so the arrow is an order: drivers in that lane must make the movement shown. The same arrow on a yellow background would only warn that the road ahead bends.

Treating lane arrows as advice about where the road goes. On a white sign the arrow decides what you are allowed to do from that lane.

Not quiteCorrect answer: B — Low beams

High beams reflect off the water droplets and throw the light back at you, reducing what you can see. Low beams throw light under the fog.

More light feels like better visibility. In fog, snow and heavy rain, more light means more glare.

Not quiteCorrect answer: D — Considerably more distance to stop

Mass and air-brake lag together mean a loaded truck can need well over twice the stopping distance of a car.

Cutting in front of a truck and then braking removes the space its driver spent kilometres building.

Not quiteCorrect answer: B — Reduced traction in rain, and should slow down and avoid sudden inputs

The surface loses grip when wet. Braking, steering and accelerating all need to be gentler and earlier than on a normal road.

The danger is not only heavy rain. The first few minutes of light rain lift oil off the surface and are often the most slippery of all.

Not quiteCorrect answer: B — Only while the beacons on the sign are flashing

The WHEN FLASHING legend makes the lower limit conditional. The beacons are set to run during the periods when children arrive and leave, and the reduced limit is in force exactly while they flash; outside those periods the road's normal limit applies.

Waiting to see a child before slowing. The limit binds while the beacons flash whether or not anyone is in sight, and a child stepping out from between parked cars is the situation it exists for.

Not quiteCorrect answer: A — A crosswalk, where people on foot may cross the road

A pair of transverse lines marks the crossing space set aside for pedestrians. You stop before it, never inside it, so that people crossing are not forced around your vehicle.

A crosswalk is confused with a stop line, which is a single wide line across your lane. Stopping on the pair pushes pedestrians into the moving lane beside you.

Not quiteCorrect answer: B — Yield anyway and avoid the collision

Right-of-way is something you give, not something you take. Every handbook states that a driver must take reasonable care to avoid a pedestrian regardless of fault.

"I had right-of-way" is a legal argument, not a defence against hitting someone.

Not quiteCorrect answer: C — Not allowed at all

A double solid white line prohibits crossing entirely. It is used where a lane change is genuinely dangerous — separating an express lane, a toll approach, or a reserved lane from general traffic.

White is filed under "lines you may cross" and yellow under "lines you may not". Colour tells you the direction of traffic; it is solid versus broken that tells you whether you may cross.