Low and high beams — District of Columbia Permit Test
Low and high beams on the District of Columbia permit test — 4 rules, each with the reason behind it and a question on it while it is fresh.
The rules
Use low beams when approaching or closely following other vehicles; low beams should also be used with street lights and in fog.
High beams bounce off fog straight back into your eyes and blind other drivers, so low beams let everyone see better.
Use low beams when approaching or closely following other vehicles.
Use high beams on dark roads to see persons or vehicles ahead.
On an unlit road low beams light only a short stretch, and a person in dark clothes can be hidden past it.
Use high beams on dark roads to see persons or vehicles ahead.
You must change to low beams at least 500 feet before meeting oncoming vehicles.
High beams straight into an oncoming driver's eyes can blind them for seconds, right as they pass you.
You must change to low beams at least 500 feet before meeting oncoming vehicles
You must change to low beams when following a vehicle at a distance of 300 feet or less.
Your high beams light up the mirrors of the car ahead and dazzle its driver from behind.
You must change to low beams when following a vehicle at a distance of 300 feet or less
On the test
When should you use low beams?
When closely following another vehicle. High beams bounce off fog straight back into your eyes and blind other drivers, so low beams let everyone see better. DC Driver Manual, p.73: “Use low beams when approaching or closely following other vehicles.”
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.
All District of Columbia permit topics
Where these come from
Every rule here is checked against DC Driver Manual, published by the District of Columbia Department of Motor Vehicles, and against the state code itself. Last checked 2026-10-05.
- src/assets/drivers-manuals/DC.pdf (DC Driver Manual (English), Rev. 7/29/2021, District of Columbia Department of Motor Vehicles, fetched 2026-10-05 from the Wayback Machine's original-bytes capture of dmv.dc.gov; sha256 pinned in SOURCES.json)
- src/assets/drivers-manuals/DC.pages.txt (the plain pdftotext fixture every citation here was cut from and verified against; sha256 pinned in SOURCES.json)
- https://dmv.dc.gov/publication/dc-dmv-automobile-driver-manual (read 2026-10-05; links only the 2023 Issuu flipbooks)
- https://issuu.com/dcdmv/docs/dc_dmv_driver_manual_english_revised_final (the current 2023 edition, read 2026-10-05 from its public page images to diff against the pinned edition; not pinnable)
- https://dmv.dc.gov/service/knowledge-tests (read 2026-10-05; states no count or mark for the knowledge test)
- https://dcregs.dc.gov/Common/DCMR/RuleList.aspx?ChapterNum=18-1 (18 DCMR chapter 1, sections 100-114, read 2026-10-05; section 104 sets what the examination covers and states no figure)
- https://code.dccouncil.gov/us/dc/council/code/sections/50-1401.01 (D.C. Code 50-1401.01, read 2026-10-05; requires a knowledge examination and states no figure)