Utility Work Ahead sign
Crews are repairing or installing power, gas, water, or cable lines on or beside the road. Expect parked utility trucks, open trenches, or a flagger.
Frequently posted on ordinary residential and arterial streets rather than highways, since utility lines run under nearly every road.
How to recognise it
This sign is a diamond stood on its point in orange, used only for temporary work zones. Orange means people are working on or near the road. Fines are typically doubled in an active work zone, which is exactly the kind of detail permit tests like to ask about.
What the test wants you to know
Unlike a paving job, utility work rarely has a tidy cone taper, so the hazard can appear with almost no notice, a bucket truck half in the lane or a worker stepping out from behind a van. Treat the reduced attention this sign gets as the actual trap the question is testing.
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.
Road Work Ahead
Workers Ahead