Understanding road signs and traffic signals is one of the most important skills that hugely impacts your driving ability and that is why we included quite a few sample questions on traffic signals into our permit practice test PA sample quiz. Have you ever about the percentage of accidents that happen on intersections? According to statistics, over 40 percent of all traffic accidents happened on intersections and these accidents result in 20 percent of all fatalities. You can say that an intersection is one of the most dangerous places on the road and that's why we could not omit this question from our practice permit test PA exam. Make sure you learn these questions by heart and stay safe!
Practice Permit Question
The practice permit question is as following:
“On the intersection, if you see a green arrow pointing to the left, you can:”
There are four answers you can choose from. Remember that you may only choose one answer:
A. Go in any direction
B. Make a “protected turn” left
C. Make a turn left or go straight
D. Turn left only if there are no vehicles coming in the opposite direction
Let's work through this permit practice test PA question together to find the best candidate for the corret answer.
PA Practice Permit Test Answers
Answer A of the permit practice test PA question suggests that even though you see a green arrow pointing left, you can really go in any direction. This goes against any logic and we truly don't see how anyone could think that this may be the correct answer.
Answer B to this PA practice permit test question introduces a notion of the “protected turn”. What this truly means is that if you are making a “protected turn”, cars traveling in all other directions, pedestrians, cyclists and everyone else MUST yield to you and allow you to finish the maneuver safely. This certainly looks like a promising answer, let's look at other options we have.
Answer C of this practice permit test PA quiz tells us that we have a choice of either going straight or turning left. While this answer is definitely better than option A, our logic tells us that an arrow pointing in certain direction should instruct us to travel in that direction and not somewhere else.
Answer D to this PA permit practice quiz question tells us to turn left only if there are no vehicles coming in the opposite direction. Now, this is another likely candidate for the correct answer, it tells us that we can make a turn, but only if we yield to everyone traveling in the opposite direction. Let's have a look at what the official Pennsylvania driver's manual has to say about this.
Correct Answer To The Permit Practice Test PA Sample Question
Here is what the Pennsylvania DMV says about the green arrow that you see on a traffic light:
“Green arrow means you may turn the way the arrow points. When you turn during the green arrow phase, your turn is “protected “ because oncoming traffic is stopped by a red light.”
As you can see, answer B is correct and you must make sure to select it should you get this question on your PA permit test. Answer D to this sample question would have been correct if the traffic light was simply showing a steady green light, without any arrows.
All this information is available in the official Pennsylvania drivers handbook, page 7 in Chapter 2: Signals, Signs and Pavement Markings.
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