You want to cross a two-way street but traffic only clears in one direction at a time. According to the manual, when is it safe to stop halfway across?
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A.
Anytime there is a painted centerline you can straddle between the lanes.
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B.
Only if you activate your four-way flashers while waiting for the next gap.
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C.
Only when a center median turn lane is large enough to hold the entire vehicle. Correct
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D.
Whenever the far lane has traffic backed up from a signal ahead.
The answer is "Only when a center median turn lane is large enough to hold the entire vehicle."
The manual permits stopping halfway across only when the median contains a turning lane large enough to hold the entire vehicle, so no part of the car sits in a live travel lane. Drivers who pick the painted-centerline answer are borrowing the center-turn-lane habit and treating any stripe down the middle as a refuge the manual never authorizes.
The traps in the wrong answers
A. Anytime there is a painted centerline you can straddle between the lanes.
A painted centerline offers no room off the travel lane; the manual requires a center turn lane large enough to hold the entire vehicle. This answer confuses an ordinary painted centerline with the marked center left-turn lane the rule actually requires.
B. Only if you activate your four-way flashers while waiting for the next gap.
Hazard lights do not create a legal refuge; the manual conditions safety on a large-enough median turn lane, not on signaling. This answer borrows the roadside-breakdown flasher habit and applies it to a mid-intersection stop where no median refuge exists.
D. Whenever the far lane has traffic backed up from a signal ahead.
Backed-up traffic ahead does not protect you from vehicles still moving in the lane you are stopped in. This answer treats stopped downstream traffic as a shield instead of asking whether the median can fully hold the vehicle.
This question tests your knowledge of Turning in Pennsylvania. Source: Pennsylvania Driver Manual, "Crossing Traffic," p.46..
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