US Road Signs and Markings
What every sign means
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If you would rather use a ready-made deck such as US Road Signs and Markings, we ask you for a small sum in return. For €1.29 once you get 171 flashcards, sorted into 8 categories and with notes that add to them. You start out learning instead of typing, and whatever you find missing later you add yourself.
- Cards
- 171
- Categories
- 8
- Price
- €1.29
Free, no account, no ads
What is in this deck
With this deck you learn the road signs of the United States: what every colour and every shape is reserved for, and what the markings on the pavement say.
A road sign is read before it is understood. The shape and the colour carry the message, and the words only confirm it: an octagon is a stop whatever language it is written in, and nothing else in the country is an octagon.
171 cards on the system behind that. Every colour and what it is reserved for, every shape and what it is kept for, the regulatory signs that are law and the warning signs that are not. Then the markings, which say the same things in paint: yellow between opposing traffic, white between traffic going the same way, and the one lane in the middle that both directions share.
The source is the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices, the federal document that makes a sign in Maine mean what it means in Arizona. It is a work of the United States government and in the public domain.
The categories decide what comes up: start with “Guide signs” alone and add the rest when you are ready.
What you learn
- Every sign colour and the one meaning it carries
- Every sign shape, from the octagon to the pennant
- Regulatory, warning, guide and work zone signs apart
- Pavement markings: yellow, white, solid and broken
- Signals, arrows and what a dark signal means
The categories
8 categories sort the 171 cards. You can filter by category and take on what is due right now.
- Guide signs
- Pavement markings
- Regulatory signs
- Rules of the road
- Shapes and colors
- Traffic signals
- Warning signs
- Work zone and school
Where the content comes from
The cards follow Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices, 11th Edition, published by Federal Highway Administration, U.S. Department of Transportation. As of 11. Auflage, Dezember 2023.
What you get
Here are three of the 171 cards you get when you buy the deck.
Question
What does the color red mean on a traffic sign?
Answer
Stop, yield or prohibition. Red is reserved for the signs that forbid: STOP, YIELD, DO NOT ENTER, WRONG WAY and the circle-and-slash prohibitions.
Note
The MUTCD assigns each color one meaning and forbids any other use, so a driver can read a sign before reading its words.
Question
What does the color yellow mean on a traffic sign?
Answer
General warning. Something ahead needs care: a curve, a hill, an intersection, an animal crossing.
Note
Yellow warning signs are diamond-shaped almost everywhere; the shape and the color say the same thing twice.
Question
What does the color fluorescent yellow-green mean?
Answer
A pedestrian, bicycle or school warning. The brightest color in the manual is reserved for the people most easily hurt.
Note
Introduced because the eye finds this hue faster than yellow at dusk.
Learning with Qardbox
You see a card, you think, you turn it over and say whether you knew it. A round asks nothing more of you, and how the app works out the next date from that is on the page about FSRS-6.
What sits comes back less often, what wobbles comes back soon. You set a daily goal, and when nothing is due the app tells you exactly that instead of inventing work for you. How a round goes is shown on the learning page.
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What it costs, and what it doesn’t
Qardbox itself costs nothing, and it stays that way. Every function is there from the start, with no subscription, no ads and no tiers; what that rests on is on the page about what it costs.
Your own cards stay unlimited, and decks from friends or from the family you read in without a limit, from a file as well. You do not need this deck in order to learn with Qardbox.
It is a shortcut: 171 checked cards for €1.29, once, with Family Sharing. The work you would otherwise do is already done. The App Store shows the price in your currency.
Common questions
Do I have to pay for Qardbox?
No. The app is free, with no subscription and no ads, and every feature is included. The only thing that costs money is a ready-made deck like this one, €1.29 once.
Could I make these cards myself?
Yes, without limit and for free. You can type them, import a file or take over cards from friends. This deck only saves you the work.
How many cards are in US Road Signs and Markings?
171 cards, sorted into 8 categories.
Do I need a connection to study?
Only to download the deck. After that it lives on your device and you study offline. There is no account, and you sign in nowhere.
Which devices does this run on?
On iPhone and iPad from iOS 26, and on Apple Watch. One purchase covers the family through Family Sharing.
Is there a Qardbox for Android?
No. Qardbox is there for iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch, not for Android and not in a browser.
Other decks that go with this one
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