Some Special Driving Situations — Texas Driver's License Practice Test

This chapter groups together the situations that call for extra skill beyond ordinary daytime driving: night driving and headlight use, entering and leaving a highway, and staying alert on long drives to avoid highway hypnosis. It also covers what to do when things go wrong on the road — a skid, a brake failure, a flat tire, or a vehicle breakdown.

The most tested material includes handling winter conditions (allowing more space and easing into turns and braking), the danger of driving into flooded roadways, and sharing the road safely with large trucks, motorcyclists, light rail, and bicyclists — each of which has different blind spots, stopping distances, or visibility challenges than a passenger car. Distracted driving, including texting, is treated as a serious hazard throughout the chapter.

A common mistake is panicking and slamming the brakes during a skid or a blowout — the correct response is almost always to ease off the gas and steer smoothly rather than brake hard. Another is underestimating how much space a large truck needs to stop, or lingering in a truck's blind spot where the driver genuinely cannot see you.