Civilized driving behavior and courtesy
Civilized driving behavior and courtesy tests whether a rider shares the road without aggression, unnecessary noise, or selfish positioning. The exam treats courtesy as part of safe driving: yielding, queueing, using lights considerately, and keeping clear of spaces needed by emergency services.
Core rules
- Yield to pedestrians at marked crosswalks and to anyone already crossing; slow down when a stopped bus or vehicle blocks your view of a crosswalk.
- Use the horn only when necessary to warn of danger, and never in no-horn areas such as hospitals, schools, and residential zones at night.
- At night, dip headlights for oncoming traffic and for vehicles ahead; do not flash high beam to hurry another driver.
- Do not throw objects from the motorcycle, spit, or leave rubbish at the roadside.
- Give way to ambulances, fire engines, and police vehicles on emergency duty; do not follow closely behind them to get through traffic.
- Queue in congested lanes; do not use the shoulder, bicycle lane, or oncoming lane to bypass traffic. Do not occupy the emergency lane on an expressway.
- Keep noise low: no revving in residential areas, no illegal exhaust, no repeated horn use.
Worked example
A rider is behind a bus stopped at a crosswalk. The bus blocks the view to the right. The rider should stop behind the bus rather than overtake, because a pedestrian may be crossing in front of it. Reasoning: the bus creates a visibility shadow; overtaking would place the rider in the pedestrian’s path with almost no reaction time. Patience here is both courteous and defensive.
Traps that cost marks
- Sounding the horn to make a pedestrian hurry; the expected answer is to slow or stop.
- Overtaking a vehicle stopped at a crosswalk.
- Using the emergency lane to pass a queue.
- Thinking courtesy is “optional” while the law requires yielding to pedestrians and emergency vehicles.