Car · Category BW
Car, Tractor & Work Vehicles theory test
Cars, tractors and work vehicles.
40
questions
45 min
to answer them
35 of 40
to pass (88%)
Sample questions from the car theory test, each with its answer and the reason behind it. Read them here; practise properly — a session at a time, until the weak topics stop being weak — in the app.
1 of 12
The kind of questions the car test asks, written the way it asks them. Pick an answer and the reason appears — read it even when you were right, because that is what makes the next one easy.
Motorways carry the highest default limit in the State at 120 km/h, and that default applies only where nothing else is signed. A lower limit applies wherever it is signposted, such as through roadworks or on approaches to cities, and the signed number always overrides the default until another sign changes it.
The default on rural local roads was reduced from 80 km/h to 60 km/h in February 2025, so 80 is the old answer rather than the current one. These are the narrow, often unlined roads signed with an L number, where bends, farm entrances, walkers and oncoming traffic in the middle of the road mean 60 is a maximum you will often need to stay well under.
Regional roads default to 80 km/h. They sit between national roads and local roads in the network, and are signed with an R number, so the mistakes to avoid are carrying the local roads' newer 60 km/h onto them or expecting the 100 km/h of a national primary road — and a signed limit beats the default in every case.
The built-up-area default is 50 km/h. Many councils are lowering this to 30 km/h in housing estates, town centres and outside schools by bye-law, so watch for the signs: a posted limit always overrides the default, and 50 is already too fast on a street where children step out between parked cars.
National primary roads — the main routes between cities — default to 100 km/h. Limits on other national roads have been under review since 2025, so always go by the signs rather than a number you have memorised, and remember that 100 is a ceiling set for the road at its best: single-carriageway stretches with junctions, entrances and oncoming traffic deserve a good deal less.
It is a maximum, not a target. Irish limits are always in kilometres per hour, and the red ring marks the number as a regulatory order rather than advice — but you must still drive more slowly whenever conditions require it, because the limit assumes a clear road, good light and dry weather.
A speed limit is a ceiling, never a licence. Driving without reasonable consideration is an offence even at or below the posted limit, so in fog the only lawful speed is the one that lets you stop within the distance you can see to be clear — which will often be a fraction of the number on the sign.
Local authorities set special speed limits through bye-laws — that is how a 30 km/h zone outside a school or a 60 km/h zone on a busy regional road comes about. An Garda Síochána enforce those limits and the RSA teaches about them, but neither body sets them, and once a bye-law limit is signed it overrides the default for that road.
A posted limit holds until another sign changes it. Repeater signs are a reminder, not a condition — their absence does not lift the limit, so what applies is the last sign you passed rather than whatever the road looks like it deserves. Nor does the default for the road type take over in the gaps: a signed special limit stays in force until a sign cancels or replaces it, so if you cannot recall what the last sign said, keep your speed down until the next one confirms what applies.
A speed limit takes effect at the sign itself, so the braking belongs before it rather than after it. The sign is put where the hazards begin, with houses, parked cars, side roads and people crossing, so arriving at it already down to the lower speed is the entire point of the limit.
A red-bordered circle is a regulatory sign and the number is a maximum. Special 30 km/h limits are common in housing estates and outside schools, made by council bye-law, and they override the 50 km/h built-up default from that sign onwards — the number is low because people step out from between parked cars with no warning.
A vehicle drawing a trailer is limited to 80 km/h everywhere, including on a motorway, where the limit for the same car without a trailer is 120 km/h. The cap belongs to the vehicle rather than the road, so traffic may legally pass you at 120 while you hold 80; where the road's own limit is lower, such as 50 in a built-up area, that lower number applies to you instead.
Written by us for practice. They are not the official examination questions.No practice app has those — and the Rules of the Road is the final word on any of it.
In the app
Work through realistic questions, learn from your mistakes, and repeat sessions as often as you need — in the app, on the bus, with no signal. Every car question comes with its explanation.
Start with these twelve questions to see how the practice works. When you’re ready for more, the app has the whole car question bank, with the free pack and first mock included.
Topics
800 questions across 30 topics, 24 of them free. Every question has an explanation, free tier included.
In the app
A page can ask you a few questions. Passing takes doing that over and over, against the topics you keep getting wrong — which is the part the app is built for.
One sheet decides the whole session, so you never sit through questions you already know.
A topic on its own — roundabouts, speed limits, signs — or everything mixed
Only the ones you have never tried, or only the ones you got wrong before
Five questions on a bus, or forty with the clock running
Every answer is followed by the reason for it, with the part of the Rules of the Road it comes from.
Marked as you go, or held back to the end like the real exam
Say your answer out loud when your hands are busy
Flag anything to come back to, and have it read aloud
Every topic carries how much of it you have seen and how much of that you got right, and the list sorts itself worst-first on request.
A bar per topic: red where you are weak, green where you are done
"My mistakes" builds a session out of everything you have got wrong
Nothing to tick off by hand — it is counted as you answer
Not a feeling, and not a percentage invented to flatter you: three signals drawn from how the real test is marked, and a plain-words insight worked out from them.
Seen 80% of the bank, passed your last three mocks, no topic under 70%
A countdown to your test date with how many questions a day that leaves
Told plainly when you are not there yet — before you pay €45 to find out
Free to start, and it works with no signal.