Vehicle equipment — Mississippi Permit Test
Vehicle equipment on the Mississippi permit test — 15 rules, each with the reason behind it and a question on it while it is fresh.
The rules
Your vehicle must have both a foot brake and a parking brake.
If the foot brake fails, the parking brake is the only way left to stop the car.
Your vehicle must have a foot brake AND a parking brake.
The foot brake must be strong enough to stop the vehicle within 30 feet at a speed of 20 mph.
Weak brakes add feet to every stop, and those feet are where a crash happens.
The foot brake must be strong enough to stop the vehicle within thirty feet at a speed of twenty miles per hour.
The parking brake must be strong enough to stop the vehicle within 55 feet at 20 mph.
A parking brake that cannot hold or stop the car is useless the day the main brakes give out.
The parking brake must be strong enough to stop the vehicle within fifty-five feet at twenty miles per hour.
Your vehicle must have a horn that can be heard 200 feet away.
A horn nobody can hear cannot warn a driver or walker who is about to step into your path.
Your vehicle must have a horn which can be heard two hundred feet away.
It is against the law to have any siren or exhaust or spark whistle on a vehicle; noise-making devices are illegal.
A siren on a private car confuses drivers who pull over for what they think is an ambulance.
It is against the law to have any siren or exhaust or spark whistle on a vehicle. Noise making devices are illegal.
Your vehicle must have 2 headlights (1 for a motorcycle) and at least 1 taillight.
A car with one headlight out can be mistaken for a motorcycle, and others misjudge its width.
Your vehicle must have two headlights [one for a motorcycle] and at least one taillight.
It is recommended that your headlights let you see a person 500 feet ahead at night in good weather.
Dim or aimed-low headlights leave you no time to stop for a person in the road.
It is recommended that with your headlights you should be able to see a person five hundred feet ahead under good weather conditions at night.
The taillight on your vehicle must be red and visible 500 feet behind you.
A driver behind you must know at once that they are looking at the back of a car.
The taillight on your vehicle must be red and must be visible five hundred feet behind you.
Besides 2 headlights, your vehicle may have no more than 1 spotlight and no more than 3 auxiliary lights.
Too many bright lamps blind other drivers and hide where your car really is.
In addition to two headlights, your vehicle may have no more than one spotlight and no more than three auxiliary lights.
It is against the law for a spotlight or auxiliary light to be red or blue.
Red and blue lights look like police or fire trucks, and drivers may pull over or panic.
It is against the law for any of these lights to be either red or blue.
At no time should you have more than 4 lights, not counting headlights, burning at once.
A car lit up like a stage blinds the drivers coming the other way.
At no time should you have more than four lights (not including headlights) burning at once.
Your muffler must be in good working order and operate constantly; no one may use a muffler cutout, bypass or similar device.
A cut-out muffler fills the street with noise and smoke that others must breathe and hear.
The muffler on your vehicle must be in good working order and must operate constantly to prevent excessive or unusual noise and annoying smoke.
Mississippi law does not require a rearview mirror, but having one is recommended.
Without a mirror you have to turn your head to see behind, and that takes your eyes off the road ahead.
Mississippi law does not require you to have a rearview mirror, but it is recommended for you to have one.
If you drive a truck whose body blocks your view of the road behind, you are required by law to have a side mirror.
A truck body hides the cars behind it, and the side mirror is the only way to see them.
(If you drive a truck with a body that blocks your view of the road behind, you are required by law to have a side mirror.)
Your tires must be properly inflated, have good tread, and be free of breaks, cuts and decay; your windshield wipers must work.
A cut or worn tire can blow out at speed and throw the car out of control.
Your tires must be properly inflated, have good tread, and be free of breaks, cuts, and decay.
On the test
Which brakes must a vehicle have in Mississippi?
A foot brake and a parking brake. If the foot brake fails, the parking brake is the only way left to stop the car. Mississippi Driver's License Manual, p.19: “Your vehicle must have a foot brake AND a parking brake.”
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 Mississippi Driver's License Manual, published by the Mississippi Department of Public Safety, and against the state code itself. Last checked 2026-10-04.
- src/assets/drivers-manuals/MS.pdf (Mississippi Driver's License Manual, Revised December 2024, Mississippi Department of Public Safety, Driver Service Bureau, retrieved 2026-10-04; sha256 pinned in SOURCES.json)
- src/assets/drivers-manuals/MS.pages.txt (the plain pdftotext fixture every citation here was cut from and verified against; sha256 pinned in SOURCES.json)
- src/assets/drivers-manuals/MS-exam.html (31 Miss. Code. R. 1-2.3 as reproduced by the Legal Information Institute, retrieved 2026-10-04; sha256 pinned in SOURCES.json under examSource)
- https://www.driverservicebureau.dps.ms.gov/Drivers/Learners_Permit (read 2026-10-04; links the manual, states no count or mark)
- https://www.sos.ms.gov/adminsearch/ACCode/00000383c.pdf (Title 31 Part 1, Driver Services Administrative Code; Rule 2.3 item 9: "A grade of 80% will be required on any and all tests issued for a Temporary Permit.")
- https://www.sos.ms.gov/adminsearch/ACProposed/00013644b.pdf (the 2006 filing whose "30 question" sentence the 2013 and 2014 re-filings struck; not used)