What to do in a collision — California Permit Test
What to do in a collision on the California permit test — 6 rules, each with the reason behind it and a question on it while it is fresh.
The rules
If you are in a collision you must stop, because someone could be injured and need your help, and failing to stop or leaving the scene is a hit-and-run with a severe punishment.
Driving away turns a traffic accident into a crime, whoever caused it.
You must stop. Someone could be injured and need your help. Failing to stop or leaving the scene of an accident is called a hit-and-run.
Call 911 right away if anyone is hurt in a collision, and if no one is hurt move your vehicle out of traffic and then call 911.
A car left in the lane is the next collision, and the injured come before the paperwork.
Call 911 right away if anyone is hurt.
Show your driver’s license, vehicle registration card, insurance information and current address to the other driver, the officer and anyone else involved in the collision.
Those four things are what lets the other driver get the damage paid for.
Show your driver’s license, vehicle registration card, insurance information, and current address to the other driver, law enforcement officer, and anyone else involved in the collision.
You must report a collision to law enforcement within 24 hours if anyone is injured or killed, and your insurance agent, broker or legal representative may file the report.
A day is not long, and the report is what starts everything else moving.
You must make a report to law enforcement within 24 hours of the collision if anyone is injured or killed.
If your vehicle hits or rolls into a parked car or other property, try to find the owner, and if you cannot, leave a note with your name, phone number and address securely attached, then report the collision to law enforcement.
A dented car with no note is a hit-and-run, even in an empty parking lot.
Try to find the owner if your vehicle hits or rolls into a parked car or other property.
If you kill or injure an animal, call the nearest humane society or law enforcement, and do not try to move an injured animal.
An injured animal bites, and moving it can finish what the collision started.
If you kill or injure an animal, call the nearest humane society or law enforcement.
On the test
What must you always do if you are in a collision?
Stop at the scene of it. Driving away turns a traffic accident into a crime, whoever caused it. California Driver’s Handbook, p.77: “You must stop. Someone could be injured and need your help. Failing to stop or leaving the scene of an accident is called a hit-and-run.”
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 California Driver’s Handbook, published by the California Department of Motor Vehicles, and against the state code itself. Last checked 2026-09-21.
- src/assets/drivers-manuals/CA.pdf (California Driver’s Handbook, DL 600 ENGLISH (REV. 6/2025), retrieved 2026-09-14; sha256 pinned in SOURCES.json)
- src/assets/drivers-manuals/CA.pages.txt (the pdftotext -layout fixture every citation here was cut against and verified against; sha256 pinned in SOURCES.json)
- src/assets/drivers-manuals/SOURCES.json, CA entry — the folio offset of 6 and its basis, the three non-law pages, the two sign gallery pages, and the record of why California’s exam shape is this app’s own
- docs/plans/chosen-exam-shapes.md section 5 — the decision that a state publishing neither exam figure ships 40/32 with both disclosed
- docs/plans/how-to-build-laws.md — the rule that the handbook is the syllabus and nothing enters this file without a page in it