Road Signs You Must Know
What this domain tests
The Road Signs You Must Know domain checks whether you can read a sign's shape, color, symbol, and text fast enough to act safely. New York follows the national MUTCD pattern, so shape and color carry meaning before you read a word.
Core rules
- Red: stop, yield, do not enter, wrong way, or prohibition. Octagon = STOP; inverted triangle = YIELD; red circle with a white bar = DO NOT ENTER.
- White rectangle with black text = regulatory (speed limit, one way, no parking, lane use). You must obey it.
- Yellow diamond = warning of a condition ahead (curve, merge, signal, pedestrian, deer). Yellow pennant = no passing zone.
- Orange = construction/work zone; fluorescent yellow-green pentagon = school zone/crossing.
- Green = guide (destinations, distances, exits); blue = services; brown = recreation/cultural.
- Railroad: yellow circular advance warning with X and R R; crossbuck at the crossing.
- A ONE WAY sign shows the permitted direction with an arrow; read the arrow, not just the word.
Speed: New York's default limit is 55 mph on most roads unless posted; New York City's default is 25 mph unless posted. A sign showing a lower number is regulatory, not a suggestion.
Worked example
You see a yellow diamond with a right-curving arrow and a small '25 MPH' plaque below. Shape and color say warning, so the diamond is not itself a speed limit. The plaque is an advisory speed for the curve: slow to about 25 mph, but the legal limit remains whatever the last regulatory speed sign posted. If instead the sign were a white rectangle reading 'SPEED LIMIT 25,' that number would be enforceable.
Traps
Mixing yellow warning diamonds with orange work-zone signs; treating an advisory speed plaque as a legal limit; missing the difference between a red 'DO NOT ENTER' circle and a red 'WRONG WAY' rectangle; assuming a green sign is a rule rather than guidance; ignoring a 'STOP AHEAD' warning because it is not an octagon.