What does this sign mean?
Pass either side of the obstruction.
Choose a side early and commit to it. Drivers who change their mind at the last moment cause most of the trouble here.
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%)
Road signs
Learn the system, not just the pictures. Once you know what each shape and colour means you can read a sign you have never seen before — which is exactly what the test is checking. 216 signs can appear on the category BW test.
Shape and colour
Amber diamond
Warning — a hazard ahead. Ireland uses a diamond, not the red triangle used across most of Europe and in the UK.
Orange diamond
Warning at roadworks. Deliberately distinct from the permanent amber ones, so a temporary hazard stands out.
Red circle
Prohibition — you must not.
Blue circle
Mandatory — you must.
Octagon
Stop, and nothing else uses this shape.
Inverted triangle
Yield.
Blue rectangle
Information.
Red prohibits, blue compels. Getting that pair straight answers a large share of the sign questions on the test.
Direction signs
The colour tells you what class of road you are being sent onto — and therefore what its default speed limit is.
Blue
Motorway
Green
National roads (N-numbers)
White with black text
Regional and local roads
Brown
Tourist and heritage attractions
10 signs, quick quiz
1 of 10
Each sign as it stands on the road, and four meanings. Pick one — the meaning is what the test asks for, not the picture, and the wrong answers are real signs of the same kind.
What does this sign mean?
Services.
What does this sign mean?
Emergency area.
What does this sign mean?
End of speed limit.
That default could be 50, 60, 80, 100 or 120 km/h depending on the road you are on.
What does this sign mean?
Road divides.
Pick your side early — the island between them arrives faster than it looks.
What does this sign mean?
Two-way traffic at works.
Often on a carriageway that is normally one-way. Expect headlights coming towards you where you would never normally meet them.
What does this sign mean?
Regional or local road direction sign.
White with black lettering.
What does this sign mean?
Manual toll booth.
Take this lane to pay by cash or card. The coin-basket and electronic tag lanes are signed separately.
What does this sign mean?
Speed limit 80 km/h.
The default on regional roads, signed with an R number. Oncoming traffic is close and unseparated at this speed, so overtaking needs a long, certain gap.
What does this sign mean?
Tractors and farm vehicles.
Common on rural roads, and at their worst around harvest. A tractor may be doing 25 km/h and can pull out of a field entrance with almost no warning, so drop your speed rather than commit to an overtake near a bend.
The signs are drawn to the Traffic Signs Manual's designs, by us or from public-domain drawings on Wikimedia Commons; none is official artwork.The meanings are the book's; the wording of a question is ours.
In the app
Every sign in your pocket, and three ways to learn them.
Reading a list of signs is not the same as knowing them. The app makes you produce the meaning, which is what the test asks for.
The signs are drawn in the app, not photographed — the same shapes at any size, in the dark.
The whole library, and every sign turns over
Tap a sign for what it means and where you meet it — the meaning is the thing the test asks for, not the picture.
Set out in the groups the Irish sign guides use, and filtered by kind: warning, roadworks, regulatory, information, motorway
Search by name when you have seen one on the road and want it now
Works with no signal, which is most of the useful moments
The four meanings come from the same group, so the wrong ones are plausible, not silly.
Ten quick questions on what they mean
Recognising a sign and producing its meaning are different skills, and only one of them is tested.
Four meanings, one sign, drawn from the group you are looking at
Never asks you to tell apart two signs that are drawn the same
A score at the end and another ten whenever you want them
'Not yet' brings a sign back sooner; a sign known five times stays away.
Or flip through them like flashcards
The old way, because it works: sign, guess, turn it over, next.
The full list or just the group you picked
Swipe or use the arrows — one hand, one thumb
Good for the five minutes before you go in
One group of signs is free; the whole library comes with the unlock.