Ontario G1 Test common mistakes
Ontario G1 Test · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
Treats a solid amber traffic light as a signal to speed up and clear the intersection, and treats flashing amber the same way as solid amber.
Everyday driving habit - most drivers accelerate on amber - plus the false idea that amber means 'go faster'. Candidates also blur the difference between a solid amber and a flashing amber.
What to do instead
Learn the three rules as separate sentences: solid amber = stop, unless you are already so close that stopping cannot be done safely; flashing amber = slow down and proceed with caution, yielding to any hazards; solid red = full stop, then proceed only where permitted. Amber never authorises acceleration.
Answers sign questions from the symbol drawn inside the sign instead of from the sign's shape and colour, for example reading a yellow diamond as a regulatory order or an inverted triangle as a stop sign.
Many signs reuse similar symbols and pictures, so candidates memorise images rather than the underlying shape-and-colour code, which is what the questions actually test.
What to do instead
Memorise the code: octagon = stop; inverted triangle = yield (slow, be ready to stop, give way); diamond, usually yellow = warning of a hazard ahead; rectangle = regulatory or information (white/black orders, green directions, orange construction); yellow circle with a black X = railway crossing ahead. Match colour to meaning: yellow warns, orange means construction, red means stop or prohibit, green gives direction.
Uses the wrong default speed limit for a road (for example answering 40 or 60 km/h for a city street) and believes it is legal to go over the posted limit in order to overtake another vehicle.
Candidates generalise from the local streets they know instead of the statutory defaults, and they remember 'passing' as an exception to the speed limit rather than a manoeuvre carried out within it.
What to do instead
Learn the three defaults that apply unless a sign says otherwise: 50 km/h in cities, towns and built-up areas; 80 km/h on highways outside built-up areas; 100 km/h on 400-series highways. A pass must be completed without exceeding the limit - if passing would require speeding, you cannot pass.
At an all-way stop, applies only 'first to arrive goes first' and has no rule for a tie, or assumes a vehicle going straight always has priority over a vehicle turning left.
Right-of-way is memorised as one rule rather than an ordered set of rules, so simultaneous arrivals and turning conflicts produce a guess.
What to do instead
At an all-way stop: first vehicle to stop goes first; if two vehicles stop at the same moment, the vehicle on the right goes first; a driver turning left must yield to oncoming traffic going straight or turning right. At a two-way stop, traffic on the through road has the right-of-way and stopped traffic yields to it.
Answers as though a G1 licence were a full licence - for example that a G1 driver may drive alone, drive at 1 a.m. alone, or have a small amount of alcohol in the blood.
Novice licence conditions are studied as a separate chapter and then lost under exam pressure, because the questions are scattered among ordinary driving questions.
What to do instead
Anchor four facts: a G1 driver must be accompanied in the front passenger seat by a fully licensed driver with at least four years of driving experience; the blood-alcohol level must be zero (the novice limit is 0.00, not 0.05 or 0.08); no driving between midnight and 5 a.m.; no driving on 400-series highways with a posted limit over 80 km/h. Nine demerit points as a novice means suspension.
Applies the two-second following rule as a fixed physical distance (a number of metres or car lengths) and keeps the same gap when the road is wet, icy or visibility is poor.
The rule is memorised as a number rather than as a time gap that must grow with speed and with reduced traction or visibility.
What to do instead
Practise the rule as a time measurement: when the vehicle ahead passes a fixed roadside object, count 'one-thousand-and-one, one-thousand-and-two'; if you reach the object before finishing, you are too close. Increase the gap to at least four seconds on wet roads, and further on snow or ice. Any exam answer that treats following distance as a fixed length is wrong.
Checks only the mirrors before changing lanes or merging and never turns the head to check the blind spot.
Mirrors feel sufficient once basic driving becomes automatic, and the blind spot is invisible in the mirror so nothing ever seems to be missed.
What to do instead
Use a fixed sequence: signal, check the mirrors, then shoulder-check the blind spot in the direction of the move, then change lanes smoothly. On the written test, any answer that relies on mirrors alone, or that omits the shoulder check, is the wrong choice.
In a skid, brakes hard and steers away from the direction the rear of the vehicle is sliding.
A panic reflex - braking is the normal response to trouble - and the correct steering input is counter-intuitive, so it is easily reversed under stress.
What to do instead
Ease off the accelerator and do not brake hard; look and steer where you want the vehicle to go, steering into the skid (in the direction the rear is sliding); make small, smooth corrections and avoid sudden throttle or brake inputs, especially on ice.
Believes only traffic approaching from behind a school bus has to stop for its flashing red lights, and does not know what the divided-highway exception actually covers.
The exception is remembered while the general rule is not, so candidates apply the exception to every road.
What to do instead
On an undivided road you must stop in both directions for a school bus with flashing red lights and remain stopped until the lights stop flashing. Only where the road is physically divided by a median does oncoming traffic not have to stop. If you are unsure, the safe and correct answer is to stop.
When an emergency vehicle with lights and siren approaches, stops in the middle of the lane or inside the intersection, or thinks it is acceptable to follow a responding fire vehicle closely to get through traffic.
Panic, plus not knowing that the obligation is to clear the intersection first and pull right, and that there is a minimum following distance behind a fire vehicle.
What to do instead
Pull as far to the right as possible and stop; if you are already in an intersection, clear it first and then pull over. Never stop where you block the emergency vehicle's path. Do not follow a fire vehicle responding to an alarm closer than 150 metres.