Unavoidable animal crash — Maine Permit Test
Unavoidable animal crash on the Maine permit test — 3 rules, each with the reason behind it and a question on it while it is fresh.
The rules
If a crash with an animal cannot be avoided, apply the brakes and steer straight.
Swerving hard around an animal can roll the car or send it into oncoming traffic.
If a crash with an animal is imminent, apply the brakes and steer straight.
Just before hitting an animal, let up on the brakes so the front of the car rises slightly, and try to hit its tail end.
A braking car dips its nose, which lets a tall animal like a moose come up over the hood into the windshield.
Let up on the brakes just before impact to allow the front of your vehicle to rise slightly while trying to hit the tail end of the animal.
When hitting an animal is unavoidable, duck down to protect yourself from windshield debris.
A moose's body often comes through the windshield, and glass and the animal land where the driver's head is.
Duck down to protect yourself from windshield debris.
On the test
If a crash with an animal is about to happen, what should you do?
Apply the brakes and steer straight. Swerving hard around an animal can roll the car or send it into oncoming traffic. Maine Driver’s License Manual, p.119: “If a crash with an animal is imminent, apply the brakes and steer straight.”
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)