Stopping — Virginia Permit Test
Stopping on the Virginia permit test — 6 rules, each with the reason behind it and a question on it while it is fresh.
The rules
You must always stop when entering a street or crossing a sidewalk from a driveway, alley, building or parking lot.
You are crossing a sidewalk where people walk without expecting a car to come out.
You must always stop at a railroad crossing where the signals are flashing.
The lights start before the train arrives, which is the only warning you get.
You must stop for people trying to cross the street at a crosswalk.
Someone already stepping off the curb has committed themselves and cannot back out.
You must stop at the scene of a crash you are involved in.
Leaving turns a crash into a separate and far more serious offense.
When you reach a stop sign and the car ahead of you moves off, you must still stop at the sign yourself before going on.
Rolling through behind the car ahead is the most common way a stop sign gets ignored.
If you do not obey an officer's signal to stop and the officer is killed in the pursuit that follows, you are guilty of a Class 4 felony.
Running from a stop turns a traffic matter into a chase that puts everyone on the road at risk.
On the test
What must you do before crossing a sidewalk from a driveway or parking lot?
Come to a complete stop first. You are crossing a sidewalk where people walk without expecting a car to come out.
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 2026-09-06.