Avoiding rear end collisions — Alaska Permit Test
Avoiding rear end collisions on the Alaska permit test — 4 rules, each with the reason behind it and a question on it while it is fresh.
The rules
Watch for brake lights ahead and shift your foot to the brake pedal promptly so you are ready to stop.
Moving your foot early saves the fraction of a second that decides whether you stop in time.
Shift your foot to the brake pedal promptly so you are ready to stop if necessary.
A shrinking distance between your car and the one ahead warns of an impending crash with that vehicle.
A gap that is closing means the car ahead is slowing, and you need to react before it is gone.
This warns of impending crash with the vehicle ahead.
To tell whether a distant car is moving or stopped, learn to relate vehicles to fixed objects.
A stopped car far ahead can look like a moving one, and drivers who misjudge it arrive far too fast.
Some drivers find it difficult to determine whether a distant car is in motion or stopped.
Look for problems that might develop for the driver ahead of you, which makes it easy to react in time.
If you see what the driver ahead is about to face, you can slow before they brake hard.
Look for problems that might develop for the driver ahead of you.
On the test
You see brake lights on the car ahead. What should you do?
Move your foot to the brake. Moving your foot early saves the fraction of a second that decides whether you stop in time. Alaska Driver Manual, p.32: “Shift your foot to the brake pedal promptly so you are ready to stop if necessary.”
How this works
Most practice tests hand you a bank of questions and leave the manual somewhere else. This one puts them together.
You read one law and the reason behind it, then answer a question on that law while it is still fresh. Get it right and you move on; get it wrong and you have found the gap while it is cheap to fix, not on the morning of the exam.
Learning one rule at a time, and proving it immediately, is what turns a manual you skimmed into something you actually know — and it makes studying feel like getting somewhere rather than like waiting to find out.
What it costs
- One payment, once — not a subscription. Nothing renews and there is nothing to cancel, for an exam you sit one time.
- Free to start: a 10-question test and the first section of cards. No sign-up and no account.
- Paying opens the rest of the cards, unlimited full-length practice tests, and retests built from exactly the questions you got wrong.
- Every level up to Prepared — 3 tests passed in a row.
- Do the work, fail the real exam, and we refund you.
Where these come from
Every rule here is checked against Alaska Driver Manual, published by the Alaska Department of Administration, and against the state code itself. Last checked 2026-10-04.
- src/assets/drivers-manuals/AK.pdf (Alaska Driver Manual, REV.10/2025, Alaska Division of Motor Vehicles, retrieved 2026-09-14 and re-checked 2026-10-04; sha256 pinned in SOURCES.json)
- src/assets/drivers-manuals/AK.pages.txt (the plain pdftotext fixture every citation here was cut from and verified against; sha256 pinned in SOURCES.json)
- https://dmv.alaska.gov/credential-services/drivermanual/ (read 2026-10-04; links the manual)
- https://dmv.alaska.gov/credential-services/instruction-permit/ (read 2026-10-04; states no count or mark)
- https://dmv.alaska.gov/credential-services/your-first-alaska-drivers-license/ (read 2026-10-04; states no count or mark)
- https://www.akleg.gov/basis/aac.asp?media=print&secStart=2.90.010&secEnd=2.90.990 (2 AAC 90, read 2026-10-04; 2 AAC 90.420(h)(2) sets the knowledge test's retest wait and no figure)