Texas Driver's Handbook, Section 9: Some Special Driving Situations
Night driving and headlights, highways, emergencies such as skids and brake failure, roundabouts, floods and sharing the road with trucks, motorcycles, light rail and bicycles.
Summary written by MyPermitExam from the official handbook, Revised January 2026. Not a copy of the handbook. Checked Oct 2026. Not affiliated with the DMV. Texas Driver Handbook (DL-7)
Key rules
- Headlights from 30 minutes after sunset to 30 minutes before sunrise; low beams within 500 feet of oncoming traffic and 300 feet behind another vehicle. p. 47
- Fight highway hypnosis: stop every two hours or 100 miles and do not drive more than eight hours a day. p. 48
- In a skid, ease off the gas and steer in the direction of the skid; if the brakes fail, use the parking brake carefully and a lower gear. p. 48
- Floods: six inches of water reaches most cars and twelve inches floats many. Turn Around Don't Drown. p. 50
- Stay out of truck blind spots, give motorcycles a full lane and four to six seconds of space, and treat bicycles as vehicles. p. 51
- Texting while driving is illegal; distractions that slow you by half a second double crashes. p. 54