80% And I have never set foot on US soil, let alone driven there, so I think I did okay, especially given one of the ones I got wrong:
This is unclear. I chose B. Correct answer is C. WTF? If you waited until all the cars have passed, you could be there all day - literally. If it’s not dangerous to turn, then you turn.
I also agree that one that said “Which of the following must you obey of the other three” is not even written in English. But I fluked that one.
Anyway, this wrong-side driving Commonwealth lad passed, so I’m happy.
I did the British one online a few years ago and failed by one question (a piece of local terminology caught me out). The American test seems to have a surprisingly easy pass score. I think the Australian one requires you to get in the high nineties somewhere to pass.
I use them to look out for critters. In the off chance that there is a moose on the road I’m shit out of luck, but they help spot deer and smaller critters.
The one I missed was on the right-of-way of pedestrians. My understanding was that a pedestrian in a marked crosswalk has the right of way, but if there are no lines painted, then he’s jaywalking. I then read the question again and realized that it specified “at an intersection.” :smack: If it weren’t for that little oversight I would have gotten 100.
I got 80%. In my defense, I have never owned a car and haven’t driven (with a learner’s permit) in 20 years. There several questions I would have gotten right I hadn’t questioned my judgement and changed them.
Anyway, Washington state ranks #2, with our neighbors to the south beating us out for the top spot. I’m going to have to point that out next time someone complains about the lousy drivers here. Maybe they’re all from Rhode Island.
Perhaps they ought to consider that the questions are stupid, not the drivers. I have no idea what #17 means, but I guessed it correctly. #15 isn’t what signs here look like to indicate what it’s supposed to, and I have no idea what they’re talking about with #18…giving it more thought do they mean the “arrows” that are curved in the direction of the turns? That’s not how it sounds to me, I interpreted it as lines of arrows pointing to god knows where.
Agreed. There will always be another car somewhere down the road, eventually. If there are none dangerously close, then it’s safe, or someone is misusing the term “dangerous”.
That’s the only one I missed. I’m in Montana. And when I moved here, I was surprised to learn that folks here actually observe the “pedestrians always have right of way” rule.
And I also agree that some of the questions and answers are abysmally written. I interpreted 17 to mean “Which of these should you obey over the others”, which got me the “correct” answer (if the light’s red, but a police officer is waving you through, you can go). And on some of the questions, I think there were multiple right answers: Is it ever a bad thing to turn your front wheels towards the curb, for instance?
I think the idea is to limit the distance the car can move in case the parking brake fails. You want the front wheels to move towards the curb, which would mean turning them away from the curb when the car is on an incline.
After reading other peoples response to the test questions, basically confirming how I felt about them (sometimes confusing at best), I can see where otherwise-rather-intelligent people get a bunch of them wrong. I tend to be a bad test taker - I overanalyze everything.
But there are also some questions that dont necessarily relate:
If there are no hills where you live, you are rarely going to be confronted with thinking out the best way to turn your wheels when parking on a hill.
Living in eastern MA, I rarely get a chance to turn on my high beams. So my answer was based on my experience, which is generally always in traffic heavy conditions.
Then there were general interpretation issues:
I found the ‘right lane ends ahead’ confusing because I never considered that the black lines represented the edge of the pavement. So many signs on the road indicate the black lines to be a lane, or where the tires travel, that it was completely from left field for me to think of the lines as being the edge of the pavement. However, after taking the test and taking better note of the signs on the road, I came to the conclusion that lines with arrows indicate the lane of traffic, not just any old black line.
The turning left question was worded poorly. I agree with a previous poster - if you wait until all traffic has passed, you’d be there all day. What if you see someone coming who is 1/2 mile away from the intersection - are you supposed to sit and wait (thereby increasing danger because you are causing a traffic backup behind you?)
Regardless - I’ve always felt that people should get retested every so often. Even once every 5 years. It just seems wrong that you get your license at 16 or 17, and can drive until the day you die without ever having to qualify for a license again.