Signs, Signals and Markings
This domain checks whether you can read the road ahead: sign shape and color, the meaning of each signal phase, and what the painted lines under your tires allow. Nevada items often turn on one detail - a flashing yellow arrow versus a solid green, or which side of a broken yellow line you are on.
Signs: shape and color carry the message
- Octagon = stop; inverted triangle = yield; diamond = warning; pennant = no-passing zone; pentagon = school; round = railroad advance warning; crossbuck = the crossing itself.
- Red prohibits, yellow warns, orange marks construction and maintenance, green directs, blue marks services, brown marks recreation.
Signals
- Steady red: stop at the limit line. A right turn on red is legal after stopping unless posted otherwise; a left on red only from one one-way street onto another.
- Flashing red = stop-sign treatment: stop, then go when clear. Flashing yellow = slow, proceed with caution.
- A flashing yellow left arrow is a permissive turn - yield to oncoming traffic and to pedestrians before turning.
- Solid yellow: stop if you can do so safely. Green arrow: protected turn.
Markings
- Yellow separates opposite directions; white separates same-direction lanes or marks the right edge.
- Broken yellow on your side allows passing; solid yellow on your side forbids it.
- A two-way left-turn lane has solid yellow outside, broken yellow inside.
Worked example
You face a flashing yellow left arrow with a green through light and a line of oncoming cars. The arrow allows the turn but gives you no protection: enter the intersection, yield to oncoming traffic and to anyone in the crosswalk, and turn only into a safe gap. If the arrow goes solid yellow, stop before the limit line unless you are already committed.
Traps
- Reading a flashing yellow as a stop.
- Treating a green light as a guarantee of right-of-way - pedestrians and vehicles already in the intersection go first.
- Confusing orange (work zone) with yellow (warning).
- Rolling through a flashing red.