If your car breaks down on a highway, you should:
- Sit in your car and wait for help.
- Use your four-way flashers to warn other drivers. ✓
- Sound your horn at passing motorists.
- Flash your headlights at oncoming traffic.
Answer: B. Use your four-way flashers to warn other drivers.
Turn on your four-way flashers (emergency warning lights) to warn other drivers that your car is disabled.
Why this is the answer
The Texas handbook's breakdown steps tell you to move the car off the pavement, then turn on your emergency warning lights; if you have no warning lights, use your taillights. It adds that portable warning devices should be used to warn oncoming traffic, and at night you should also turn on the inside lights. So making the car visible to other drivers is the point of the flashers, and they are the warning signal the handbook names for this situation.
Why the other answers are wrong
- A. Sit in your car and wait for help. — The handbook says that if you can't get the car off the road, you should get everyone out of the car and off the road, so staying seated inside and waiting is the opposite of that instruction.
- C. Sound your horn at passing motorists. — The handbook's breakdown steps say nothing about honking at passing motorists; they call for warning lights, taillights, a white cloth or a raised hood.
- D. Flash your headlights at oncoming traffic. — Flashing headlights at oncoming traffic is not one of the warning steps the handbook lists for a disabled car; it names emergency warning lights, taillights, a raised hood or a tied white cloth.
Remember it
Think in order: get the car off the pavement, then make it visible with the flashers, then get people away from the traffic.