Crashes — Virginia Permit Test
Crashes on the Virginia permit test — 8 rules, each with the reason behind it and a question on it while it is fresh.
The rules
If you are involved in a crash you must stop at the scene, or as close to it as you can get without blocking traffic.
Leaving turns a crash into a separate criminal offense, and it leaves anyone hurt without the one person who knows what happened.
After a crash you must give any help you can to anyone injured, report the crash to the police, exchange information with the others involved and tell your insurance company.
Each of these is something only the people at the scene can do, and each becomes impossible once everybody has driven away.
Do not move an injured person from a wrecked vehicle unless you have the medical training or there is an immediate danger such as fire.
Moving somebody with a spine injury can paralyze them, and the risk of doing that is usually greater than the risk of waiting.
Drivers must move vehicles off the road at once if the vehicles can be moved, nobody is injured, and the driver can do it safely.
A crashed car left in a lane is what the second crash hits, and the second one usually arrives at full speed.
Law enforcement officers must forward a written crash report to DMV when a crash causes injury or death, or when total property damage is more than $3,000.
That threshold is what puts the crash onto your DMV record, where an insurer and a future employer can see it.
If you damage an unattended vehicle or property and cannot find the owner, leave a note at the scene and report the crash to the police within 24 hours.
A note with no report is still leaving the scene, and the police report is what lets the owner claim on insurance.
When you get out after a crash, be careful and keep your vehicle between you and moving traffic where you can.
Traffic keeps coming past a crash, and standing on the traffic side of your own car is how a second collision finds you.
If your car stalls on the tracks, get out at once and run away from the tracks at an angle, toward the direction the train is coming from.
Running at an angle toward the train keeps you clear of the wreckage, which is thrown forward along the tracks by the impact.
On the test
What must a driver do first after being involved in a crash?
Stop at or close to the scene. Leaving turns a crash into a separate criminal offense, and it leaves anyone hurt without the one person who knows what happened.
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.
Where these come from
Every rule here is checked against Virginia Driver’s Manual, published by the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles, and against the state code itself. Last checked 2026-09-02.
- https://www.dmv.virginia.gov/licenses-ids/exams/know-exam
- https://www.dmv.virginia.gov/sites/default/files/forms/dmv39.pdf
- https://www.dmv.virginia.gov/sites/default/files/documents/dmv39i.pdf
- https://www.dmv.virginia.gov/licenses-ids/learners/apply
- https://www.dmv.virginia.gov/licenses-ids/learners/restrictions
- https://law.lis.virginia.gov/vacode/title46.2/section46.2-870/
- https://law.lis.virginia.gov/vacode/title46.2/section46.2-873/
- https://law.lis.virginia.gov/vacode/title46.2/section46.2-874/
- https://law.lis.virginia.gov/vacode/title46.2/section46.2-862/