Basic Driving — Maryland Driver's License Practice Test

This section covers the everyday fundamentals of controlling your vehicle: getting ready to drive, managing risk, yielding the right-of-way, choosing a safe speed and following distance, and turning, passing, and parking. A basic rule is that the driver should control the vehicle at all times to avoid a crash, adjusting speed, position, and direction to road conditions. Searching ahead and being ready to change speed or lanes is called defensive driving.

Yielding the right-of-way means letting others go first; never assume you automatically have it. Yield to the driver already at or arriving before you at an intersection, to the driver on your right if you arrive at the same time (including a four-way stop), to pedestrians, bicyclists, and drivers still in an intersection, to oncoming traffic when turning left, and to traffic already on a road you are entering from a driveway or highway ramp. The posted speed limit is the maximum under ideal conditions and you should never drive faster than it; it is safest to travel at the same speed as most traffic, up to the limit, and you may drive slower when conditions require it.

Most rear-end crashes are caused by following too closely, so the MVA recommends a minimum following distance of 3 to 4 seconds under ideal conditions, checked by counting '1 one thousand, 2 one thousand, 3 one thousand' as the car ahead passes a reference point. Increase this to four or five seconds or more behind vehicles that stop often, like buses and delivery vans. Drive in a single lane and do not change lanes until it is safe or in an intersection; generally pass on the left, and never pass in a no-passing zone, near the top of a hill or curve where you cannot see ahead, within 100 feet of a bridge, tunnel, intersection, or railroad crossing, or on the shoulder. When parking, set the parking brake, place the vehicle in gear or park, take your keys, and lock the doors.