Road hazard sign pictures — District of Columbia Permit Test
Road hazard sign pictures on the District of Columbia permit test — 5 rules, each with the reason behind it and a question on it while it is fresh.
The rules
This sign means a steep grade is ahead; check your brakes.
Going down a steep hill makes the car pick up speed, and you need to know your brakes will hold before you start.
A steep grade is ahead. Check your brakes.
This sign means bicycles regularly cross or ride beside traffic in this area.
A cyclist is narrow and easy to miss, and this sign tells you where to look for one.
Bicycles regularly cross or ride beside traffic in this area.
At this sign, when the pavement is wet, reduce your speed, do not brake hard or change direction suddenly, and increase your following distance.
Wet pavement gives your tires less grip, and a hard brake or sudden swerve is what starts a skid.
When pavement is wet, reduce your speed. Do not brake hard or change direction suddenly.
This sign means the animal pictured is common in the area; watch for it crossing the road, particularly at dusk, dawn and night.
Animals move most when the light is low, which is also when they are hardest to see.
The animal pictured on the sign is common in this area; watch for this species crossing the road particularly during dusk, dawn and night-time hours.
This sign marks a pedestrian crossing; look and be prepared to stop if pedestrians are present.
People crossing here expect drivers to see them, and slowing early gives you room to stop.
Pedestrian Crossing; Look and be prepared to stop, if pedestrians are present.
On the test
What should you do when you see this sign?
Check your brakes for the grade. Going down a steep hill makes the car pick up speed, and you need to know your brakes will hold before you start. DC Driver Manual, p.105: “A steep grade is ahead. Check your brakes.”
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)