Turning around — Montana Permit Test
Turning around on the Montana permit test — 3 rules, each with the reason behind it and a question on it while it is fresh.
The rules
You may turn around on a roadway only where you can see 500 feet in both directions without obstruction and no vehicles are coming.
A car crossing the road sideways is a wall, and anyone coming fast needs that distance to see it and stop.
You may turn around on a roadway where the driver has 500 feet in both directions (almost two average city blocks) of unobstructed view and no vehicles are approaching.
Turning around on a busy street or near a curve or hill is illegal and dangerous.
A driver coming over a hill cannot see a car stopped across the road until it is too late to stop.
Common sense should tell us never to try turning around on a busy street or near a curve or hill.
Most city ordinances prohibit U-turns in the middle of a block, and some prohibit U-turns entirely.
Drivers in mid-block expect cars to go straight, not to swing across both lanes in front of them.
Remember that most city ordinances prohibit U-turns in the middle of a block, and some prohibit U-turns entirely.
On the test
To turn around on a roadway, how far must you be able to see clearly in both directions?
500 feet. A car crossing the road sideways is a wall, and anyone coming fast needs that distance to see it and stop. Montana Driver Manual, p.39: “You may turn around on a roadway where the driver has 500 feet in both directions (almost two average city blocks) of unobstructed view and no vehicles are approaching.”
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 Montana Driver Manual, published by the Montana Department of Justice, and against the state code itself. Last checked 2026-10-04.
- src/assets/drivers-manuals/MT.pdf (Montana Driver Manual, Revised April 2024, Montana Department of Justice, Motor Vehicle Division, retrieved 2026-09-14 and re-checked 2026-10-04; sha256 pinned in SOURCES.json)
- src/assets/drivers-manuals/MT.pages.txt (scripts/mt-text.sh: pdftotext -layout except printed pp.24-26, which are plain; the fixture every citation here was cut from and verified against; sha256 pinned in SOURCES.json)
- src/assets/drivers-manuals/MT-exam.html (Administrative Rules of Montana 23.3.121, Road Signs and Road Rules, as reproduced by the Legal Information Institute, read 2026-10-04; states the seven-miss pass mark; sha256 pinned under examSource)
- https://mvdmt.gov/forms-driver-license/ (read 2026-10-04; links the manual)