North Carolina driving lesson · Signals, Signs & Pavement Markings
Guide signs, pavement markings & traffic officers
A 3-minute lesson from the North Carolina course. Read the rules and examples, follow the handbook page references, and check your understanding before you move on.
Guide signs tell you where you are and where to go. Pavement markings show which lanes go which way and where you may pass. And when an officer directs traffic, the officer outranks every sign and signal.
Route numbers and markers:
Odd-numbered highways generally run north and south
Even-numbered highways generally run east and west
U.S. highway markers are shield shaped
N.C. route markers are diamond shaped
N.C. secondary road signs are rectangular
Interstates are marked by a red, white and blue shield
Signs for a nearby hospital, Highway Patrol station or telephone are blue and white. Rectangular guide signs may be green, brown or blue and give directions and distances.
On a two-lane road you may pass with care if the broken yellow line is on your side. If you see a yellow edge line on your right and white on your left, you're going the wrong way.
Obey a traffic officer's signals instead of normal signals or signs. Stop: one hand raised, palm toward you, plus a long whistle blast. Go: a hand motion plus a series of short blasts. At night the officer may use a flashlight.
You're on I-95 and wonder which way you're headed. Odd numbers generally run north-south, so I-95 is a north-south route. I-40, an even number, runs east-west.
Check your understanding
Read the question, decide on an answer, then open it to check the explanation. These are Roadwise study questions based on the source handbook.
Odd-numbered North Carolina highways generally run in which direction?
East and west
In a loop around cities
There is no pattern
North and south
Answer: North and south
Odd-numbered highways generally run north and south.
