You're outside city limits on a rural Oregon road and you want to make a U-turn. What visibility threshold must your vehicle satisfy?
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A.
Visibility from both directions of at least a quarter mile.
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B.
500 feet of clear sight in each direction.
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C.
Visibility of at least 100 feet.
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D.
Visibility from both directions of at least 1,000 feet. Correct
The answer is "Visibility from both directions of at least 1,000 feet."
Outside city limits, U-turns are prohibited where your vehicle cannot be seen by traffic from either direction within 1,000 feet, because rural speeds demand more sight distance for drivers to react to a car turning across the road. Inside city limits the sight-distance threshold drops to 500 feet, and a separate rule bars U-turns between intersections in a city. A driver picking B carries the inside-city 500-foot figure out onto a rural road, where the 1,000-foot rule governs instead.
The traps in the wrong answers
A. Visibility from both directions of at least a quarter mile.
The threshold is 1,000 feet (about 0.19 miles), not a quarter mile (1,320 feet). This answer rounds 1,000 feet up to a quarter mile; the manual specifies 1,000 feet, not 1,320 feet.
B. 500 feet of clear sight in each direction.
500 feet is the inside-city-limits threshold; outside city limits the threshold is 1,000 feet. This answer applies the inside-city 500-foot threshold to a rural location; the manual sets 1,000 feet outside city limits.
C. Visibility of at least 100 feet.
100 feet is the turn-signal distance, not a U-turn visibility threshold. This answer confuses the 100-foot turn-signal advance distance with a U-turn visibility threshold.
This question tests your knowledge of Turning in Oregon. Source: Oregon Driver Manual, "U-Turns," p.41..
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