Driver's License Test Prep
US Road Signs Warning Signs

What does this Divided Highway Begins sign tell a driver about the road ahead?

Yellow diamond with two black wavy arrows separating around a black median island, left arrow pointing down, right arrow pointing up
  1. A.
    Two same-direction lanes ahead merge into a single travel lane.
  2. B.
    The road splits into two separate one-way roadways separated by a median. Correct
  3. C.
    The divided highway ends ahead and traffic returns to two-way.
  4. D.
    The road ahead ends at a dead end with no through route.
The Why

The answer is "The road splits into two separate one-way roadways separated by a median."

The sign warns that the road splits into two separate one-way roadways separated by a median or barrier, so from that point you keep right of the divider and treat each direction as its own one-way street. The trap is the choice that reads the sign as the divided highway ending and traffic returning to two-way; that meaning belongs to the mirror-image W6-2 sign, whose symbol on the same yellow diamond points the opposite way.

Why the others miss

The traps in the wrong answers

A. Two same-direction lanes ahead merge into a single travel lane.

A lane-reduction warning uses a symbol showing two lanes narrowing into one, not a roadway splitting around a median. This answer reads any yellow-diamond diagram of diverging or converging paths as a lane-drop message, the pattern the Lane Ends (W4-2) sign trains drivers to expect.

C. The divided highway ends ahead and traffic returns to two-way.

That warning is the mirror-image W6-2 Divided Highway Ends sign, not this one, which announces the divided section beginning. This answer swaps the begin-warning for its mirror, which announces the divider dropping away and oncoming traffic returning.

D. The road ahead ends at a dead end with no through route.

A dead-end warning names a roadway that stops with no exit; this sign shows the roadway continuing on both sides of a divider. This answer reads a roadway splitting around a median as a route that terminates with nowhere to go.

The Rule

This question tests your knowledge of Warning Signs on the roads of every US state . Source: Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices, sign W6-1 (Divided Highway Begins)..

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