Using your headlights — California Permit Test

Using your headlights on the California permit test — 7 rules, each with the reason behind it and a question on it while it is fresh.

The rules

Dim your high-beam headlights to low beams within 500 feet of a vehicle coming toward you.

High beams reach far enough to blind the driver ahead, and a blinded driver cannot stay in their lane.

Dim your high-beam headlights to low beams within 500 feet of a vehicle coming toward you or within 300 feet of a vehicle you are following.

California Driver’s Handbook, p.11

Dim your high-beam headlights to low beams within 300 feet of a vehicle you are following.

The glare in their mirror is as bad as the glare in their eyes, and they cannot look away from it.

or within 300 feet of a vehicle you are following

California Driver’s Handbook, p.11

It is illegal to drive using only your parking lights.

Parking lights show a stopped car. They do not show a moving one, or how fast it is coming.

It is illegal to drive using only parking lights.

California Driver’s Handbook, p.11

Use your headlights when it is too dark to see from 1,000 feet away.

Headlights are as much about being seen as seeing, and at that distance nobody has seen you yet.

When it is too dark to see from 1,000 feet away.

California Driver’s Handbook, p.11

Use your headlights beginning 30 minutes after sunset and until 30 minutes before sunrise.

The half hour either side of the sun is the part of the day drivers keep misjudging.

Beginning 30 minutes after sunset.

California Driver’s Handbook, p.11

If you need your windshield wipers because of fog, rain or snow, you must turn on your low-beam headlights.

Wipers on means the air is full of water, and water is what hides a car from the driver behind.

In adverse weather. If you need to use your windshield wipers due to fog, rain, or snow, you must turn on your low-beam headlights.

California Driver’s Handbook, p.11

Use your headlights on mountain roads and in tunnels, even on sunny days.

A tunnel is night in the middle of the afternoon, and a mountain road is full of shadow.

On mountain roads and tunnels (even on sunny days).

California Driver’s Handbook, p.11

On the test

Within what distance of an oncoming vehicle must you dim your high beams?

500 feet. High beams reach far enough to blind the driver ahead, and a blinded driver cannot stay in their lane. California Driver’s Handbook, p.11: “Dim your high-beam headlights to low beams within 500 feet of a vehicle coming toward you or within 300 feet of a vehicle you are following.”

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

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  • 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.

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Where these come from

Every rule here is checked against California Driver’s Handbook, published by the California Department of Motor Vehicles, and against the state code itself. Last checked 2026-09-21.