What the questions look like
- Areas examined
- Rules of the road · signs and markings · vehicle controlsRegulation 104(2)(a)
- Scoring
- Each area is passed or failed on its own
- Road markings
- Examined inside the road signs areaNot a fourth section — which is why studying signs and skipping paint costs marks
- Controls questions
- Tied to the class you applied forA motorcycle applicant is not asked about a rear window
- Published question count or pass mark
- None, from any official sourceSee the pass-mark page for what we checked
How to use worked questions properly
A question you have already seen tells you almost nothing. The bank a testing centre draws from is not published, the wording differs from ours, and the options are presented in a different order. If you have learnt that the answer is the second one, you have learnt nothing you can use.
What does transfer is the reason. Nearly every question in the test turns on one distinction — two signs that differ by a colour, a rule that has a closed list of exceptions, a limit that applies to the road and another that applies to your vehicle. Learn the distinction and you can answer a question you have never seen.
So read the reason under each answer below, and treat it as the point of the exercise rather than as a footnote to the letter you were supposed to pick.
Ten questions, with the answer and the reason
You reach a four-way stop and a car is already stopped on your right. Who goes first?
The car on your right — because it stopped first, not because it is on your right. The rule at a four-way stop is the order in which vehicles came to a complete stop: you give way to anyone who stopped before you and whose path crosses yours. Yield-to-the-right is only the convention drivers use to settle a genuine tie.
A single solid white line runs down the middle of the road and the vehicle ahead is crawling. May you cross it to overtake?
No. A single solid line has exactly three exceptions — reaching a property on the other side, coming out of a property onto the roadway, and passing a stationary obstruction — and each of them applies only if it is safe. A slow vehicle is not a stationary obstruction, and impatience is not an exception.
When may you cross a double solid white line?
Only to pass a stationary obstruction in the roadway, and only if it is safe to do so. Two lines are stricter than one: the access exceptions fall away entirely, so you may not cross a double line to turn into your own driveway.
A blue circle with a bicycle on it, and a red ring with a bicycle in it. What is the difference?
They are opposites. A red ring prohibits the thing pictured, so a bicycle inside a red ring means cycles are not allowed. A blue circle reserves the road or lane for the thing pictured, so a bicycle on a blue circle means it is a cycle path. Same picture, opposite instruction — this is the most common sign error there is.
A triangular sign with the point at the top and a red border. What class of sign is it, and what does it require?
It is a warning sign, and it commands nothing by itself. It tells you what is ahead — a curve, a crossing, a hazard — so that you can adjust before you reach it. A triangle with the point downwards is the yield sign, which is regulatory and does command: give way.
At roadworks, a yellow temporary sign contradicts the permanent sign beside it. Which one do you obey?
The temporary one. A temporary sign is displayed on a yellow background precisely so that it is distinguishable, and where it conflicts with a permanent sign it is the temporary sign that governs. The permanent sign was installed for a road layout that is not the one in front of you.
What is the general speed limit on a public road inside an urban area?
60 km/h. Outside an urban area on a road that is not a freeway it is 100 km/h, and on a freeway 120 km/h. Some classes of vehicle carry a lower limit of their own, and where two limits apply the lower one governs — the road's limit never licenses you to exceed your vehicle's.
You are approaching a traffic circle. Who do you give way to?
All traffic approaching from your right that is already in the circle. You then move clockwise around the island. A road traffic sign or a traffic officer can override this, and where the circle is signposted with yield signs, it is the sign's instruction you follow.
A red warning light comes on in the instrument cluster while you are driving. What should you do?
Stop as soon as it is safe to do so, and do not carry on to see whether it goes away. Red means stop; amber means check, and lets you complete your journey with care. Treating red as advisory is how a warning light becomes a repair bill.
How long is a learner's licence valid, and what happens when it expires?
24 months, running from the date of your examination and test rather than from the date the licence was printed or collected. There is no renewal and no extension. If it expires before you pass your driving test, you write the learner's test again from the start.
The mistake this page exists to prevent
Collecting question-and-answer lists. There are hundreds of them online, most copied from each other, several with answers that are simply wrong — and a wrong answer learnt confidently is worse than no preparation, because you will not question it in the test.
Check what a list is sourced to before you learn from it. Every answer on this page names the provision or the chart entry it rests on, and they are listed at the bottom. If a list cannot tell you where its answers come from, it cannot tell you they are right.
Answer some instead of reading them
Reading answers feels like studying and is not. Thirty free practice questions across the three areas, with a written explanation on every one, and a five-question readiness test that scores you by section the way the real test does.
Take the free readiness testCommon questions about practice questions
Are these the questions that come up in the test?
No. Nobody outside a testing centre has the bank the test draws from, and a site telling you otherwise is either guessing or copying. These are questions of the same kind, written from the same law the test examines.
How many practice questions do I get free here?
Thirty — ten on road signs, ten on rules, ten on vehicle controls — plus a five-question readiness test that needs no account, and one twenty-question mock paper once you register.
Do the answers come with explanations?
Yes, on every practice question: what the correct answer is and why the tempting wrong one is tempting. That is the part worth your time.
Are there questions in Afrikaans?
Yes. The whole question bank and the written library serve Afrikaans as well as English inside the app. These public guides are written in English only.
Sources
- National Road Traffic Regulations, 2000 — regulation 104(2)(a)The three areas the test examines, and that the controls area relates to the class applied for.
- National Road Traffic Regulations, 2000 — regulation 101(1)The 24-month validity of a learner's licence, running from the date of the examination and test.
- National Road Traffic Regulations, 2000 — regulations 292 and 293(1)The general speed limits, and the separate class limits that can apply to a vehicle on the same road.
- National Road Traffic Regulations, 2000 — regulation 298No-overtaking lines: the prohibitions on a single and a double line, and the closed list of exceptions to each.
- National Road Traffic Regulations, 2000 — regulation 301Yielding at a junction where traffic moves around a traffic island.
- National Road Traffic Regulations, 2000 — Schedule 1, signs R1.4 and R2.2The prescribed meanings of the four-way stop and yield signs.
- Department of Transport, South African Road Traffic Signs Manual, Volume 1 Chapter 7Sign classes, the red-ring and blue-disc conventions, and temporary signs on a yellow background.
Last updated 2026-09-21.