Added Lane sign

Federal designation W4-3 in the MUTCD, the national standard every state signs to. Typically seen where a long highway on ramp is engineered to become a permanent through lane rather than dissolve into existing traffic.

How to recognise it

This sign is a diamond stood on its point in yellow, the warning colour. Yellow diamonds telling you what the road is about to do. They are advisory rather than mandatory, but ignoring them is how people end up in ditches and how examiners end up failing you.

What the test wants you to know

The symbol shows two separate arrows running side by side into two continuing lanes, which is what sets it apart from a merge sign where two arrows become one. Because both lanes continue, entering traffic does not carry the right of way the way a true merge grants it, though courtesy still applies.

The sign people confuse it with

Added Lane gets mixed up with Merge more than any other pairing in this category. Put them side by side and the difference is obvious, which is exactly why it is worth doing once rather than meeting them cold in the exam.

Added LaneAn extra lane is about to begin, usually where a ramp joins the highway as its own lane rather than requiring a merge

MergeTraffic from another roadway will join yours

Practise it

Reading about a sign is not the same as recognising it in half a second with an examiner watching. Every state road signs test on this site shows the sign and asks you to name it, then shows four faces and asks you to pick the right one.

Take a road signs test