Increasing following distance — New Hampshire Permit Test
Increasing following distance on the New Hampshire permit test — 4 rules, each with the reason behind it and a question on it while it is fresh.
The rules
A driver should increase the following distance on slippery roads.
Everything takes longer to stop on a wet road, so the same gap in time buys less distance than it did.
On slippery roads.
A driver should increase the following distance when following large vehicles like trucks, buses, recreational vehicles and vehicles pulling a trailer.
A large vehicle blocks the view of everything it is about to react to, so the extra room is the only warning you get.
When following large vehicles like trucks, buses, recreational vehicles and vehicles pulling a trailer.
A driver should increase the following distance at night, in fog, or in bad weather.
Each of these shortens how far ahead a driver can see, and the gap has to grow to match.
At night, in fog, or in bad weather.
A driver should increase the following distance when following vehicles required to stop at railroad crossings, like transit buses, school buses or vehicles carrying hazardous materials.
Those vehicles stop where nothing else does, so a driver following closely is braking for a stop that seemed to come from nowhere.
When following vehicles required to stop at railroad crossings, like transit buses, school buses or vehicles carrying hazardous materials.
On the test
When should a driver increase the following distance?
On slippery roads. Everything takes longer to stop on a wet road, so the same gap in time buys less distance than it did. New Hampshire Driver's Manual, p.31: “On slippery roads.”
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
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All New Hampshire permit topics
Where these come from
Every rule here is checked against New Hampshire Driver's Manual, published by the New Hampshire Division of Motor Vehicles, and against the state code itself. Last checked 2026-09-16.
- src/assets/drivers-manuals/NH.pdf (New Hampshire Driver's Manual, Rev. 11/25, New Hampshire Division of Motor Vehicles, retrieved 2026-09-14)
- src/assets/drivers-manuals/NH.pages.txt (plain pdftotext over that PDF; sha256 pinned in SOURCES.json)
- src/assets/drivers-manuals/SOURCES.json (sha256, folio offset 6, folioMarker, nonLawPages, signGalleryPages and the extraction flag, each with its basis)