Driver's License Test Prep
US Road Signs Guide Signs

What does this Telephone sign tell a driver about the road ahead?

Blue square sign with a white telephone handset symbol
  1. A.
    A public telephone is available ahead. Correct
  2. B.
    A rest area with restrooms is ahead.
  3. C.
    Cellular phone use is not allowed here.
  4. D.
    An emergency call box requires you to stop.
The Why

The answer is "A public telephone is available ahead."

The white handset on a blue square is a motorist service symbol, and blue services signs point drivers to something helpful ahead: here, a public telephone. The sign marks the phone itself, not any larger facility around it. The rest-area answer is the trap. Because the phone symbol often appears at rest stops, a reader can expect the sign to advertise the whole facility rather than the single service actually pictured on it.

Why the others miss

The traps in the wrong answers

B. A rest area with restrooms is ahead.

The white handset on blue marks a public telephone, not a rest area. Restrooms and rest areas have their own service signs, separate from this one. Treats a single-service symbol as though it advertised the whole rest stop that the phone might sit inside.

C. Cellular phone use is not allowed here.

Blue-and-white symbol signs point to a motorist service, not a driving prohibition, and regulatory bans on driver behavior use red and black instead. Borrows from distracted-driving campaigns and the crossed-out phone icons at fuel pumps, applying that reflex to any phone symbol on a road sign.

D. An emergency call box requires you to stop.

The telephone symbol points to a phone the driver may use; it does not itself demand any action. The federal manual allows the symbol alongside emergency call signs, but the plain D9-1 sign carries no duty to stop. Mistakes the phone symbol for the emergency call sign it is sometimes posted beside, then reads a duty to stop and report into it.

The Rule

This question tests your knowledge of Guide Signs on the roads of every US state . Source: Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices, sign D9-1 (Telephone)..

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