Freeway ends sign
What the Freeway ends sign means: Freeway conditions end here, so expect a lower limit, intersections and traffic that can stop.
- Does this group carry the law
- Mostly informational, but the road it announces carries rules.
- In the sign deck
- 3 questions ask about this sign
What to do when you see it
- Start slowing before the sign, because the limit beyond it will be lower.
- Expect intersections, traffic lights, pedestrians and parked cars, none of which were there a minute ago.
- Increase your scanning, since freeway driving lets your eyes settle further ahead than a suburban road allows.
- Watch your speed carefully for the next few minutes, because coming off a long high speed run makes 60 km/h feel like walking pace.
Where you see it
Where a motorway ends at an arterial road, at the edge of a built up area, and at the end of a bypass around a town.
Across the states and territories
Used nationally, with local naming differences between freeway, motorway and expressway. The transition is longer and better signed on the newer urban motorways than at the end of an older rural bypass, so do not rely on the sign alone to tell you the road has changed character.
Tell it apart from these
- Freeway endsthis pageFreeway begins
The two are the bookends of the same length of road, and reading the wrong one leaves you accelerating where you should be slowing.
Freeway begins: Freeway rules start here, so no pedestrians, bicycles or learner restrictions that bar the freeway, and no stopping except in an emergency.
- Freeway endsthis pageEnd of speed limit
The end of a freeway is not an end of speed limit sign. The number falls rather than being lifted.
End of speed limit: The lower limit finishes here and the normal limit for that road applies from this point.
How the knowledge tests use it
Speed adaptation is the tested idea: after a long fast run, your sense of speed is unreliable and you have to read the speedometer.
What does this sign mean?
Past this sign you are back on an ordinary road, with intersections, traffic lights, driveways, people on foot and usually a lower limit.
State and territory driver handbooks, freeway and motorway driving
Common questions
- What does the Freeway ends sign mean?
- Freeway conditions end here, so expect a lower limit, intersections and traffic that can stop.
- What should you do when you see a Freeway ends sign?
- Start slowing before the sign, because the limit beyond it will be lower. Expect intersections, traffic lights, pedestrians and parked cars, none of which were there a minute ago. Increase your scanning, since freeway driving lets your eyes settle further ahead than a suburban road allows. Watch your speed carefully for the next few minutes, because coming off a long high speed run makes 60 km/h feel like walking pace.
- Where is the Freeway ends sign used?
- Where a motorway ends at an arterial road, at the edge of a built up area, and at the end of a bypass around a town.
- What is the Freeway ends sign confused with?
- Freeway begins: The two are the bookends of the same length of road, and reading the wrong one leaves you accelerating where you should be slowing. End of speed limit: The end of a freeway is not an end of speed limit sign. The number falls rather than being lifted.
- How do the knowledge tests ask about the Freeway ends sign?
- Speed adaptation is the tested idea: after a long fast run, your sense of speed is unreliable and you have to read the speedometer.
Try it in a question
Original practice questions, not the official bank. How we write and check them.
More guide and service signs
Green for routes and directions, blue for services.