G1 Questions Everyone Gets Wrong (Real Examples)
2026-07-27
Right-of-way traps
“Two vehicles arrive at an all-way stop at the same time. Who goes first?” The answer is the vehicle on the right — not the faster vehicle, and not whoever inches forward first. It feels like a coin flip in the moment, but Ontario, BC and Alberta all test this exact scenario because real intersections stall when two drivers both assume it’s their turn.
“At an intersection with no signs or signals, two vehicles approach at about the same time. You should yield to…” Again, the vehicle approaching from your right. This is the uncontrolled-intersection version of the same rule, and it shows up in every provincial pack because it’s one of the few right-of-way rules with no exceptions for road size or vehicle type.
Both questions test the same underlying idea from two different angles, which is exactly why they’re worth learning as one concept rather than two facts to memorize separately: whenever right-of-way isn’t assigned by a sign or signal, and two vehicles are genuinely tied, the vehicle on your right has priority.
The “everyone assumes” trap
“At a red light with no sign prohibiting it, you may turn right…” — after coming to a complete stop and yielding to pedestrians and traffic. Plenty of new drivers either roll through without stopping, thinking a clear road means they don’t need to, or assume right turns on red are banned everywhere in Ontario. Neither is correct: the default is legal-after-a-full-stop, and only a posted sign removes that right.
A close cousin catches people the opposite way: “You may turn left on a red light only when turning…” from a one-way road onto a one-way road, after a complete stop. Most learners have never even considered that a left turn on red could ever be legal, so this one gets missed simply from not knowing the exception exists at all.
Numbers you have to memorize cold
“If you double your speed, the distance your vehicle needs to brake to a stop becomes about…” four times as long, not twice. This one catches people who reason like speed and stopping distance scale together in a straight line — they don’t, because braking distance grows with the square of your speed.
“U-turns are NOT allowed when you are…” on a curve, near a hill crest, near a railway crossing, or within 150 metres of a bridge or tunnel that blocks your view. It’s a long list, and the test likes to offer a shorter, wrong-sounding option like “within 500 metres of a school” to see if you actually memorized the real conditions or just guessed at what sounds cautious.
Provincial quirks that catch cross-province test-takers
Alberta’s pack asks: “When passing a stopped emergency vehicle or tow truck with its lights flashing, drivers in the adjacent lane must…” slow to 60 km/h, or the posted limit if it’s lower — a flat number. BC’s version of the same rule is a formula, not a flat number: “70 km/h where the limit is 80 km/h or more, and 40 km/h where it is below 80.” If you studied one province’s handbook and then skim a practice set built for another, this is exactly where you’ll pick the wrong answer out of habit.
Ontario adds its own local wrinkle with streetcars: “A streetcar stops to let passengers on or off where there is no safety island. You must stop at least two metres behind its rear doors until passengers are clear.” Drivers from provinces without streetcar service sometimes assume they can simply pass slowly on the right, which is exactly the wrong answer here.
The takeaway
None of these questions are unfair — every one of them is answered directly in the official handbook for that province. The pattern is that knowledge tests reward precise recall over general driving sense, so the fix isn’t “drive more,” it’s drilling the exact number, the exact order, and the exact province-specific rule until picking the right answer stops feeling like a guess.
If you only have time to fix one habit before test day, make it this: whenever a practice question includes a specific number or a named exception, stop and drill that question in isolation until you can restate the rule without looking at the options. Those are the questions that separate a comfortable pass from a nervous scrape.
FAQ
Why do right-of-way questions feel harder than sign questions?
Because the rule has to be applied to a scenario rather than just recognized. Signs test recall; right-of-way questions test whether you can work out who moves first when several rules could apply at once.
Do Ontario, BC and Alberta test the same right-of-way rules?
The core rules — yield to the right, first-stopped-goes-first — are shared across all three. The differences show up in specifics, like the exact speed required when passing a stopped emergency vehicle.
Is “four times the distance” really correct for doubling your speed?
Yes. Braking distance increases with the square of speed, so doubling your speed roughly quadruples the distance needed to stop — a real physics fact the handbooks test directly.
What’s the fastest way to stop missing these?
Drill by category rather than by random mixed quiz. Right-of-way, numeric limits and province-specific rules each reward a different kind of memorization, and mixing them too early just slows down your recall.