When you are studying for the car theory test you will need to study and practice 14 car theory test subjects. These subjects range from your attitude towards road users around you to the rules regarding the motorway.

Motorway Rules – a total number of 55 car theory test questions, motorway rules questions range from what road users should do in the event of a breakdown on the motorway to where would you find a crawler or climbing lane.

Let us start with the first tricky question that many learner drivers seem to struggle with on the car theory test:

Your vehicle breaks down on a motorway and you need to call for help. Why might it be better to use an emergency roadside telephone rather than a mobile phone?

  • It connects you to a local garage
  • Using a mobile phone will distract other drivers
  • It allows easy location by the emergency services
  • Mobile phones don’t work on motorways

So, we know two of the answers here are incorrect. ‘Using a mobile phone will distract other drivers’, well maybe it will distract the person using the phone but not so much the other road users and ‘mobile phones don’t work on motorways’ well, mobile phones can work anywhere that has a signal so these two theory test car questions are obviously incorrect. The next two theory questions are a bit trickier and seem to catch a lot of learner drivers out. ‘It connects you to a local garage’ and ‘it allows easy location by the emergency services.’ The question is ‘could the emergency telephone on the roadside of the motorway really connect you to a local garage?’ The simple answer here is yes it could but no it doesn’t actually do that. The real use of the emergency telephone is that ‘it allows easy location by the emergency services.’ If or when you break down on a motorway, by using the emergency telephone, it will connect you straight away to the emergency services and they will have your exact location so that way they can come and find you as soon as possible without too many delays. It is very useful to know this and very handy too as breaking down on a motorway can be very scary and you may feel a bit lost.

Below is a question that you will find on the car theory test that many learner drivers guess incorrect and that is largely because many of them do not seem to understand what a crawler or climbing lane is…

You’re travelling along a motorway. Where would you find a crawler or climbing lane?

  • On a steep gradient
  • Before a service area
  • Before a junction
  • Along the hard shoulder

Let us start by explaining what a crawler/ climbing lane on a motorway is. A crawler/ climbing lane is usually found on the left-hand lane of a very, very steep motorway and is traditionally used by large and heavy vehicles. These vehicles i.e. lorries, tractors, coaches etc may struggle to climb this part of the motorway and thus find themselves going much slower than the speed limit. This lane is designed to allow the large heavy vehicles to use this lane without feeling too much pressure of trying to get close to the speed limit as it may not be possible as the motorway at this point is far too uphill. Now lets go through the four possible answers. Its clear now that ‘before a service area’, ‘before a junction’ and ‘along the hard shoulder’ are all incorrect as we now know that a crawler/ climbing lane is uphill so the correct answer is ‘on a steep gradient’. Therefore, we stress it is important to understand the car theory test and not to try to guess the answers as this can result in a low overall score as well as a lack of road knowledge.