Understanding illuminated signals on motorways
The location of the signs and signals that you see on motorway itself tells you some information: who it applies to.
Signs at the edge of the road will apply to all drivers, whilst those that appear above a specific lane for instance from an overhead gantry will apply only to drivers in that particular lane.
Ordinarily these signals are switched off in normal road conditions and just come on when there is some sort of problem affecting normal driving conditions: this could be an accident but in many cases it is due to volume of traffic or perhaps roadwords that are being conducted somewhere along the motorway.
There are amber lights on these signs - two at the top and two at the bottom, and these flash in sequence to help provide a visual clue to you that the sign is on and providing information that you need to read, understand, and react to accordingly adjusting your driving as necessary to conform to the message on the sign. If you see flashing red signals, this means you must stop unless you are able to join another lane.
All of the signs for motorway driving are listed in the highway code and you should take the time to read through them carefully and learn and understand what they all mean. Whilst some of them are obvious - for instance if it says 'Fog' or 'End', not all of them are so obvious and if you can get confused about what the different indicators with regard to which lane you should be in mean, then it is worth learning them.
Some of these signs may crop up in your driving theory test. You can use our sign learning tool for help learning them. Also be sure to sign in and go through all the theory test questions in advance so that you know inside out what the signs mean that might crop up in your driving theory test.
Related Articles...
Testing your driving ability
The driving part of the test to assess if you are safe to let on the roads is called the practical test, and it lasts in the region of 40 minutes in total. The purpose is to assess if you can drive...
What's the point of the theory test?
The official theory test is a relatively recent addition to the driving test, and has evolved and become more comprehensive over time. For many of us who ask our parents about the driving test,...
The Driving Standards Agency
The Driving Standards Agency has a website at www.dsa.gov.uk.
They are an executive agency within the Department for Transport in the UK.
They deliver tests for theory and practical...
The Advanced Driving Test
There are advantages to continuing to study driving by means of a course like the advanced driving test, because it will help to give you the chance to develop your skills even further than you had...
Prepare for driving theory tests
In order to pass tests, whether they are academic tests at school such as english, geography, spanish, french and so on, or to pass some other one - like theory tests - the methodology that can be...
Regular car checks to perform
In addition to the daily checks that you should perform on core elements of your car such as the tyres (see article entitled 'what to check on your car daily') there are various other elements that...
What are greener fuels
One of the most well known of the green fuels is something that is called Biofuel.
Biofuel is a group of different fuels rather than an individual fuel in itself, and the class contains things...
Motorway Driving Tips
Driving on a motorway for the first time can be both exciting and a little daunting - exciting as it is something new whilst daunting as you won't have experienced driving on a motorway before...
More on Motorway Driving
Signs that let you know there is a motorway ahead are rectangular, and they have a green background. This shows that they are information signs on a primary road.
The part with the reference...
Using emergency telephones
There are emergency telephones along motorways. There are telephones that occur roughly once per mile along the motorway which are connected to the emergency services.
There are also blue and...
Back to home page of driving theory test questions
