Speed limits — Texas Permit Test
Speed limits on the Texas permit test — 11 rules, each with the reason behind it and a question on it while it is fresh.
The rules
The maximum speed limit in an urban district is 30 mph.
Built-up streets have cars pulling out and people stepping off curbs. Thirty is what makes a stop possible.
Urban District 30
The maximum speed limit in an alley is 15 mph.
An alley is narrow, walled, and full of doorways people step out of. Fifteen is the lowest limit in the table.
Alley 15
The maximum speed limit on beaches and county roads next to a public beach, where the county commissioners court declares it, is 15 mph.
People walk on a beach without watching for traffic, and children run. The limit is the same as an alley.
Beaches and County Roads adjacent to a public beach (if declared by the commissioners court of the county) 15
A passenger car may travel at up to 70 mph on a highway numbered by Texas or the United States outside an urban district.
This is the highest ordinary limit in the table. Everything above it needs a posted sign.
Highway numbered by Texas or the U.S. outside an urban district including Farm to Market and Ranch to Market roads Passenger cars, motorcycles, light truck, passenger car or light truck towing a trailer or semi-trailer, truck or truck-tractor, truck or truck-tractor towing a trailer or semi-trailer, buses, school activity bus. 70
A passenger car may travel at up to 60 mph on a highway outside an urban district that is not numbered by Texas or the United States.
Unnumbered roads are narrower and less well engineered. Texas drops the limit by ten for that reason.
Highway not numbered by Texas or the U.S. and outside an urban district: Passenger cars, motorcycles, light truck, passenger car or light truck towing a trailer or semi-trailer, truck or truck-tractor, truck or truck-tractor towing a trailer or semi-trailer, buses, school activity bus
A school bus that has passed a commercial vehicle inspection may travel at up to 60 mph on a numbered highway outside an urban district.
A loaded bus takes far longer to stop than a car. Texas holds it ten below the car limit even when it has passed inspection.
School Buses which have passed a commercial vehicle inspection. 60
A school bus that has not passed a commercial vehicle inspection, or is on an unnumbered highway, may travel at up to 50 mph.
An uninspected bus is a bus nobody has checked the brakes on. Texas takes another ten off the limit.
School buses that have not passed a commercial vehicle inspection or are traveling on a highway not numbered by Texas or the U.S. 50
Drivers are required to obey posted minimum as well as maximum speed limits.
A car far below the flow is an obstacle everybody else has to get round. The minimum exists for the same reason the maximum does.
Drivers are required to obey posted minimum and maximum speed limits
Cities and counties have the authority to change the speed limits in the table, and an entity that sets or alters a limit must set the same limit for daytime and nighttime.
A limit that changed after dark would need two signs and two rules. Texas requires one figure for both.
Entities that establish or alter a speed limit must establish the same speed limit for daytime and nighttime
Many limited access highways in Texas have speed limits of 75 up to 85 mph.
These are posted limits above anything in the table. The table is the default, not the ceiling.
Many limited access highways have speed limits of 75 up to 85 mph
During heavy traffic, bad weather, low visibility, or other poor conditions a driver must adjust their speed and following distance.
The posted limit was set for a clear dry day. In anything else it is a number, not a safe speed.
During periods of heavy traffic, bad weather, low visibility, or other poor driving conditions, you must adjust your speed and following distance to help avoid crashes
On the test
What is the Texas maximum speed limit in an urban district?
30 mph. Built-up streets have cars pulling out and people stepping off curbs. Thirty is what makes a stop possible. Texas Driver Handbook, p.46: “Urban District 30”
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 Texas Driver Handbook, published by the Texas Department of Public Safety, and against the state code itself. Last checked 2026-09-16.
- src/assets/drivers-manuals/TX.pdf (Texas Driver Handbook, form DL-7, Revised January 2026, Texas Department of Public Safety, retrieved 2026-09-14 from dps.texas.gov)
- src/assets/drivers-manuals/TX.pages.txt (plain pdftotext over that PDF; sha256 pinned in SOURCES.json)
- src/assets/drivers-manuals/SOURCES.json (sha256, folio offset 6, nonLawPages, the four extraction traps and the extraction flag, each with its measured basis)
- docs/plans/texas-exam-shape.md (the search that established that no official source states the question count, and the two decoys it disposes of)