Road Safety
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50 free Road Safety trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Almost everything that keeps people alive on the road was somebody's bright idea, and usually it arrived after something had gone wrong. A belt across the chest, a lamp at eye level, a painted line, a mirror above the dashboard: each one has an inventor, a first trial and, often, a long argument before anyone agreed to use it. This road safety trivia quiz covers those stories alongside the practical knowledge behind a traffic quiz. Expect questions on the engineers and campaigners who made driving less deadly, on crossings, signals and markings, on speed and drink-driving laws in Britain, America and beyond, and on the mascots and film stars who were recruited to spread the message. It works for a school road safety week, a driver training session, a staff safety meeting or a quiz night. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so players leave knowing why the rule or the gadget exists, not only what it is called.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01David Prowse, Britain's Green Cross Code Man who taught children to cross roads, played which Star Wars character?
Darth Vader
Darth Vader was Prowse inside the suit, with another actor's voice dubbed over his West Country accent. Prowse played the Green Cross Man in road safety adverts from 1975 to 1990 and was made an MBE for it in 2000.
Q 02Early trials of the high-mounted third brake light, which halved rear-end collisions, mainly used which vehicles?
Taxicabs
Taxicabs fitted with the extra lamp were hit from behind about half as often as those without. The United States and Canada went on to require it on every new car from the 1986 model year.
Q 03Whose fatal 1935 motorcycle crash in Dorset led neurosurgeon Hugh Cairns to study crash helmets for riders?
Lawrence of Arabia
Lawrence of Arabia, the soldier and writer T. E. Lawrence, was thrown over the handlebars while swerving around two boys. Cairns, one of his doctors, then spent years proving that helmets saved dispatch riders.
Q 04Nobel physicist Arthur Compton designed which traffic-calming device in 1953 to slow cars passing his university?
Speed bumps
Speed bumps, which Compton called traffic control bumps, were his answer to motorists racing past Brookings Hall at Washington University in St. Louis, where he was chancellor.
Q 05Which Hollywood star filmed a safe-driving interview with actor Gig Young shortly before dying in a 1955 Porsche crash?
James Dean
James Dean shot the spot in a cowboy outfit during a break from filming Giant, toying with a lasso while he told viewers to drive carefully. He was killed on a California road that September.
Q 06Walter Arnold of Kent became the first driver convicted of speeding, in 1896, for travelling at about what speed?
8 mph
8 mph was four times the limit that applied where Arnold was caught, and it cost him a fine of one shilling plus costs.
Q 07The evasive swerve test that famously tipped over a brand-new small car in 1997 is nicknamed after which animal?
Moose
The moose test imitates dodging an animal that steps into the road. A motoring magazine rolled the new car at 37 mph, while an elderly Trabant got through the same course unharmed.
Q 08The United States imposed a national 55 mph speed limit in 1974 mainly in response to what?
An oil crisis
An oil crisis, set off by the 1973 embargo, made saving fuel the aim. Road deaths fell as well, which helped keep the limit on the books until 1995.
Q 09Mary Anderson patented which car safety device in 1903, reportedly inspired by a New York streetcar driver in the snow?
Windshield wipers
Windshield wipers began as her rubber blade on an arm, worked by a lever from inside. Buyers said it had no commercial value, and her patent expired in 1920 before anyone mass-produced it.
Q 10The far-hand way of opening a car door, which turns drivers to spot passing cyclists, is named after which country?
Netherlands
The Netherlands gave its name to the Dutch Reach, a habit known there since at least 1961. Reaching across with the far hand swivels the shoulders, so the driver looks back before the door opens.
Q 11Tufty Fluffytail, who has taught British children to cross roads safely since 1953, is which kind of animal?
Squirrel
A red squirrel, Tufty fronted a club for under-fives that grew to nearly 25,000 branches, with about two million children signed up by the early 1970s.
Q 12Britain's Pegasus crossings carry a second push button two metres off the ground for which road users?
Horse riders
Horse riders can press the high button without dismounting, and the usual green and red men on the signal are swapped for horse symbols. The name borrows the winged steed of Greek myth.
Q 13Jaywalking, a word that spread across America in the 1910s, takes its 'jay' from old slang for what kind of person?
A country rube
Q 21Béla Barényi, who patented the crumple zone that lets a car's ends fold in a crash, worked for which carmaker?
Mercedes
Mercedes built his idea into its saloons: a rigid passenger cell between a front and rear that give way and soak up the blow. Barényi patented the developed version in 1952.
Q 22Anti-lock brakes, which stop a car's wheels locking in an emergency stop, were first developed for which vehicles?
Aircraft
Aircraft needed the help first, because holding the brakes right on the edge of a skid is nearly impossible on a landing run. French pioneer Gabriel Voisin was trying out the idea as early as 1920.
Q 23A dropped laboratory flask that cracked without scattering led French chemist Édouard Bénédictus to invent what?
Safety glass
A country rube, or greenhorn, was a 'jay', and a jay-driver was one who strayed onto the wrong side of the road. By 1909 newspapers had turned the insult on pedestrians.
Q 14Before designing Volvo's three-point belt, Nils Bohlin developed which devices for Saab's fighter jets?
Ejection seats
Ejection seats were Bohlin's work at Saab from 1942, and throwing pilots clear of stricken jets taught him how a body copes with violent forces. He needed only about a year to perfect the car belt.
Q 15A 1939 conference organised by educator Frank Cyr chose the standard colour for which American vehicles?
School buses
School buses got the yellow-orange shade because black lettering on it was the easiest to read in the half-light of early morning, and it stood out from a distance.
Q 16Shibuya Crossing, the world's busiest scramble where all traffic halts so walkers cross diagonally, is in which city?
Tokyo
Tokyo gave the junction its scramble signals in 1973, and as many as 3,000 people now pour across on a single green light.
Q 17Which English town is known for its 1972 Magic Roundabout, a junction of five mini-roundabouts arranged in a circle?
Swindon
Swindon's junction has been voted one of Britain's scariest, yet its safety record is excellent: traffic crawls through too slowly for a collision to do serious damage.
Q 18Small medals of which patron of travellers are often placed in cars in the hope of a safe journey?
Saint Christopher
Saint Christopher owes the role to the legend that he spent his life carrying travellers across a dangerous river, on one crossing bearing the Christ child on his shoulders.
Q 19The cliff-edge Yungas Road, nicknamed Death Road and often called the world's most dangerous, is in which country?
Bolivia
Bolivia makes this the one road in the country where traffic keeps left, so the driver on the outside can watch the wheels against the drop. A safer bypass was finished in 2006.
Q 20Car head restraints, first patented in 1921, are positioned mainly to prevent which injury in a rear-end collision?
Whiplash
Whiplash happens when the head snaps back over the top of the seat. A Californian patented a car headrest as early as 1921, decades before the first countries made them compulsory in the late 1960s.
Safety glass of the laminated kind came from that flask, which was coated inside with cellulose nitrate. Bénédictus filed his patent in 1909, after hearing of a car crash in which flying glass badly hurt two women.
Q 24Ray Harroun won which inaugural 1911 race using a rear-view mirror in place of the riding mechanic the rules expected?
Indianapolis 500
The Indianapolis 500 rules called for a mechanic on board to watch the traffic behind, and Harroun drove alone. His mirror caused a row, but in the end officials allowed it.
Q 25Florence Lawrence, who devised an early signalling arm to show which way a car would turn, was famous as what?
A film actress
A film actress often called the first movie star, Lawrence also came up with a mechanical brake signal. She patented neither idea, and so never earned credit or money from them.
Q 26In 2009, which Pacific nation switched from driving on the right to the left so it could import cheaper cars?
Samoa
Samoa was the first territory in almost 30 years to change sides, and it did so over loud protests: 14,000 of its 18,000 vehicles had been built for the other side of the road.
Q 27Which country's parliament adopted Vision Zero in 1997, the policy that no road death or serious injury is acceptable?
Sweden
Sweden starts from the idea that people will always make mistakes, so its roads are built with safety put ahead of speed or convenience. Cities around the world have since copied the policy.
Q 28Maurice Gatsonides built the first Gatso speed camera to improve his own performance in which sport?
Rallying
Rallying was his trade, and the device was meant to measure how fast he took corners so that he could drive them better. Only later was a company formed to sell it to police forces.
Q 29Candace Lightner founded which American campaign group in 1980 after an intoxicated motorist killed her daughter Cari?
MADD
MADD, short for Mothers Against Drunk Driving, grew out of her fury that the man who hit Cari had recently been arrested for another hit-and-run while drunk. Lightner left the group in 1985.
Q 30The Harvard Alcohol Project persuaded 1980s TV shows such as Cheers to promote which Scandinavian road safety idea?
Designated drivers
Designated drivers had been a Scandinavian habit since the 1920s. From 1988 the Harvard campaign got networks and studios to work the idea into scripts and public service announcements.