Cattle Crossing sign

Federal designation W11-4 in the MUTCD, the national standard every state signs to. Placed near open range areas and ranch land where fencing is minimal, most often in the western and southwestern states that still allow free range grazing.

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

Unlike a deer crossing, cattle are large, slow and often move as a group, so the safe response is a full stop rather than a swerve. Test questions sometimes swap this sign with deer crossing to check whether you notice the animal silhouette is different.

The sign people confuse it with

Cattle Crossing gets mixed up with Deer Crossing 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.

Cattle CrossingLivestock may be on or crossing the road ahead, often without a fence to stop them

Deer CrossingAnimals frequently cross this stretch of road

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