Signs and Road Markings
This section tests instant recognition: can you read a sign's shape, colour and supplementary plate while moving, and can you apply road markings to a vehicle that is 2.5 m wide and 18 m long?
Shape and colour carry the meaning
- Red ring or red circle: prohibition (no entry, no overtaking, weight or height limit).
- Blue circle: mandatory instruction (turn direction, minimum speed, compulsory route for goods vehicles).
- Red triangle: warning of a hazard ahead.
- Rectangle or square: information, direction, services, lane guidance.
- Octagon: stop. Inverted triangle: give way.
Supplementary plates underneath carry the real instruction: distance to the hazard, times of day, vehicle class, or weight threshold. A truck symbol or "3.5 t" plate decides whether the restriction applies to you. Temporary yellow or orange works signs override permanent ones. Where signals flash amber, treat the junction as give-way and proceed only when clear.
Markings
- Solid line: do not cross. Broken line: you may cross when it is safe and legal. Double solid: neither direction may cross.
- Stop line at signals and at stop signs; zebra bars give pedestrians priority.
- Chevron hatching and painted islands are not driving space, even when empty.
- Lane arrows tell you the lane's permitted direction before the junction, and a long vehicle must commit early.
Worked example
On a rural road you see a red circle showing two cars side by side, one red, with a plate reading "5 km" and a truck symbol. A slow tractor is ahead. Reasoning: overtaking is prohibited for goods vehicles, starting at the sign, for the next 5 km. You reduce speed, hold a safe gap, and wait for the end-of-prohibition or a legal passing lane.
Traps that cost marks
Confusing a blue mandatory circle with a blue information square; missing the plate under a sign; treating a broken line as an instruction to overtake rather than permission to consider it.