What does a steady yellow traffic light mean?
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A.
The light has just turned green.
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B.
Speed up to clear the intersection.
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C.
Stop only if pedestrians are present.
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D.
The light is changing from green to red. Correct
The answer is "The light is changing from green to red."
Yellow warns that the light is changing from green to red, and once red appears you can't enter the intersection. B is the trap for drivers who treat yellow as a hurry-up cue, a habit picked up from casual driving where accelerating past a fading yellow feels harmless.
The traps in the wrong answers
A. The light has just turned green.
Green follows red, not yellow, in the standard three-color sequence. This answer applies the warn-before-change logic in the wrong direction, expecting yellow to announce a coming green when the manual only uses it to announce a coming red.
B. Speed up to clear the intersection.
Yellow warns of the coming red; it isn't authorization to accelerate. This answer carries over a hurry-up habit from side streets and empty roads, where flooring it past a fading yellow feels harmless.
C. Stop only if pedestrians are present.
The color of the light sets the rule at a yellow, not the presence of pedestrians. This answer reads yellow as a pedestrian-priority phase and borrows the yield-to-pedestrians rule that actually belongs to green.
This question tests your knowledge of Traffic Lights in Illinois. Source: Illinois Rules of the Road, "Traffic Lights: Steady Lights," p.77..
Related Illinois questions
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