Traffic light order — Maine Permit Test
Traffic light order on the Maine permit test — 2 rules, each with the reason behind it and a question on it while it is fresh.
The rules
On a vertical traffic light, the lights are red, yellow and green from top to bottom.
A driver who cannot tell which lamp is lit, in glare or with poor color vision, can read it by its place.
They are red, yellow, and green from top to bottom.
If traffic lights are horizontal, red is on the left, yellow in the middle and green on the right.
A driver who expects red on top of a sideways light can misread it and go on red.
If traffic lights are horizontal, the red light is on the left, the yellow light is in the middle and the green light is on the right.
On the test
On a traffic light hung up and down, which light is at the top?
The red light. A driver who cannot tell which lamp is lit, in glare or with poor color vision, can read it by its place. Maine Driver’s License Manual, p.50: “They are red, yellow, and green from top to bottom.”
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 Maine Driver’s License Manual, published by the Maine Secretary of State, and against the state code itself. Last checked 2026-10-05.
- src/assets/drivers-manuals/ME.pdf (Maine Driver’s License Manual, Rev 4/24, Maine Secretary of State, Bureau of Motor Vehicles, retrieved 2026-10-04; sha256 pinned in SOURCES.json)
- src/assets/drivers-manuals/ME.pages.txt (scripts/me-text.sh: plain pdftotext except physical 82, which is -layout; the fixture every citation here was cut from and verified against; sha256 pinned in SOURCES.json)
- src/assets/drivers-manuals/ME-exam.html (Maine BMV, Drivers License Exam page, https://www.maine.gov/sos/bmv/driver-licenses-and-ids/car-license/drivers-license-exam, read 2026-10-04; states both exam figures; sha256 pinned under examSource)
- https://www.maine.gov/sos/bmv/driver-licenses-and-ids/car-license/driver-license-manual-and-Maine-motorist-handbook-and-study-guide (read 2026-10-04; links the manual)