Road Signs: Shape, Colour and Required Action
What this domain tests
The road-sign questions check whether you can recognise a sign instantly by its shape and colour, and whether you know the action the law expects - not just the sign's name.
The three families
- Regulatory signs tell you what you must or must not do: white rectangles with black lettering and red circles or slashes (speed limits, no left turn, do not enter). The octagon is used only for stop; the inverted triangle only for yield.
- Warning signs are yellow diamonds with black symbols warning of hazards ahead: curves, intersections, railway crossings, playgrounds, narrow bridges. A round yellow sign with a black X warns of a railway crossing ahead; the crossbuck marks the crossing itself.
- Information and guide signs are green (destinations, distances), blue (services) or brown (points of interest).
Colour also flags conditions: orange means construction or a temporary condition, and fluorescent yellow-green marks school zones. Where a warning sign carries a speed tab, that number is an advisory speed for the hazard, not the legal limit - unless a regulatory speed sign also applies.
Worked example
You see a yellow diamond showing a curved arrow with a 40 tab beneath it. The diamond says a curve is ahead; the 40 is the safe advisory speed through that curve. On a dry road at 70 km/h you are legal against the posted limit, but you are driving too fast for the hazard and could be found driving without due care. Slow before the curve, not in it.
Traps that cost marks
- Treating an advisory speed tab as a posted limit.
- Confusing a do-not-enter rectangle with a wrong-way sign.
- Missing the school-zone colour, which makes the 30 km/h limit apply when children are present.