Steering and lights — Vermont Permit Test
Steering and lights on the Vermont permit test — 4 rules, each with the reason behind it and a question on it while it is fresh.
The rules
If the vehicle becomes hard to steer or the steering wheel moves too loosely, have it checked by a qualified mechanic. A good rule is to have the steering and front end looked over two times a year.
Steering gives no second chance: when it goes, it goes in the middle of a corner.
A good rule is to get your steering and what mechanics call "the front end" looked over two times a year.
Headlights that are dim, aimed too low or dirty stop you seeing as far ahead as you should. Lights aimed too high, or that do not dip, can blind an oncoming driver.
A headlight is a piece of equipment with two jobs, and a badly aimed one fails at both.
If the lights are aimed too high or do not go to low beam when a vehicle comes toward you, your headlights may blind the other driver.
The back license plate must be lighted so that it can be seen and read at least 50 feet from the back of the vehicle.
The plate is how your car is identified at night, and an unlit one is a stop waiting to happen.
The back license plate must be lighted so it can be seen and read at least 50 feet from the back of the vehicle.
Tail lights, stop lights, directional lights and parking lights should always be working properly, and burned out bulbs should be replaced right away with the manufacturer's recommended replacements.
Every one of these is how the car talks to the drivers behind it, and a dead bulb is a sentence they never hear.
When bulbs burn out, they should be replaced right away with the manufacturer’s recommended replacements.
On the test
How often should the steering and front end be looked over?
2 times a year. Steering gives no second chance: when it goes, it goes in the middle of a corner. 2025 Vermont Driver's Manual, p.60: “A good rule is to get your steering and what mechanics call "the front end" looked over two times a year.”
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 2025 Vermont Driver's Manual, published by the Vermont Department of Motor Vehicles, and against the state code itself. Last checked 2026-09-15.
- src/assets/drivers-manuals/VT.pdf (2025 Vermont Driver's Manual, form VN-007, retrieved 2026-09-14)
- src/assets/drivers-manuals/VT.pages.txt (pdftotext -layout over that PDF; sha256 pinned in SOURCES.json)
- src/assets/drivers-manuals/SOURCES.json (sha256, folio offset 1, folioMarker, nonLawPages, signGalleryPages and the extraction flag, each with its basis)