13.2 No Overtaking, Horn Ban and Speed-Limit Signs

No overtaking, horn ban, and speed-limit signs

Section 13.1 taught the entry and turn discs. This section stays inside the same April 2025 Guyana Road Traffic Code list and studies four further named prohibitions: Overtaking prohibited, Overtaking by lorries prohibited, Speed limit, and Use of horn prohibited. This independent OpenExamPrep study of signs 30 to 33, of rule 34, of rule 76, and of rule 78 is not a GPF booklet and does not claim official approval or partnership.

Quick Answer: Sign 30 means overtaking is prohibited for the traffic that faces it. Sign 31 means overtaking by lorries is prohibited. Sign 32 is the speed-limit plate — a red circle with a numeral (the Code drawing shows 30); posted signs take precedence, and you MUST observe speed limits (rule 78). Sign 33 means use of the horn is prohibited. The Code's names 1 to 40 do not include an end-of-restriction plate. Do not invent one. Sounding the horn still never gives right of way (rule 76).

Sign 30: overtaking prohibited

Sign 30, Overtaking prohibited. The illustration is a circular plate with two cars; the overtaking vehicle is the one the prohibition marks. Guyana is left-hand traffic. When overtaking is allowed at all, you overtake on the right (off side) (rule 22(d) and rule 36). Sign 30 takes overtaking off the table for traffic facing the plate. It does not authorise overtaking on the left. It does not apply only after dark. It does not apply only to hire cars. A minibus on the East Coast, a motor car on the East Bank, and a motorcycle in Georgetown are all facing the same disc.

Combine the plate with the Code's place-list. Rule 34 already says DO NOT OVERTAKE at or near a corner or bend, a road junction, a pedestrian crossing, a bridge or narrow culvert, or the top of a hill or rising of the roadway, and do not overtake where the road narrows or when to do so would force other vehicles to swerve or reduce speed. Sign 30 can sit on a straight where rule 34 would otherwise leave a judgment. The plate is the judgment: do not overtake here.

Combine it also with the paint from Chapter 11. Regulation 178(4)(e) uses a continuous yellow line left of the centre, as viewed in your direction of travel, to prohibit overtaking a moving vehicle and stopping. A yellow line and a sign 30 can occupy the same length. Neither is cancelled because you can "see far enough," because the following vehicle is impatient, or because you sounded the horn. Rule 33 still says never overtake unless you can see that there is no danger to yourself or others, and to be specially careful after dark and in rain. Rule 37 still forbids cutting in. Rule 75: if the vehicle you are attempting to overtake accelerates, do not race it; fall behind.

Do not overtake a pedal cyclist if traffic is approaching from the opposite direction (rule 34's cycle sentence). Sign 30 does not create a spare permission to pass a cycle on the near side. Hold back if in doubt.

Sign 31: overtaking by lorries prohibited

Sign 31, Overtaking by lorries prohibited. This is a class ban, not a duplicate of sign 30. Lorries (goods vehicles) facing the plate must not overtake. A motor car or motorcycle is not the named subject of sign 31. That is the exam distinction. It is not a licence for a car to overtake through a rule 34 place, past a sign 30, across a continuous yellow, on the Demerara Harbour Bridge, on the Canje Bridge, or into the face of oncoming traffic. It is not an invitation for lorries to overtake on the left. It is not a parking plate.

Name the plate when the item shows a car and a lorry and asks which class must not overtake. On a two-way East Coast road with a slow tractor ahead, a lorry facing sign 31 waits in the left-hand stream. A car still has to satisfy rule 22, rule 33, rule 34, and any yellow line. Chapter 8 already capped motor tractors at 15 mph / 24 km/h; a tractor crawling is not a reason to invent a lorry overtake the plate has removed.

Sign 32: the speed-limit plate, and what the Code does not print

Sign 32, Speed limit. A red circle with a black numeral. The Code illustration shows 30. The numeral is the posted maximum on that length. Rule 78: you MUST observe speed limits and traffic signs. Chapter 8 already taught the Act's Second Schedule figures for light cars — restricted roads 30 mph, elsewhere 40 mph, Timehri Field/Linden Highway 60 mph — and the programme's metric pair (urban/restricted about 48 km/h, open road about 64 km/h). It also taught the learner cap of 25 mph / 40 km/h and the tractor cap of 15 mph / 24 km/h. Posted signs take precedence over treating a bare Schedule number as the live maximum on a signed length. GPF posted the Soesdyke–Linden Highway at 80 km/h (February 2020), which is slower than the Act's 60 mph light-car highway row. Drive carefully within the prescribed or posted limit on the Demerara Harbour Bridge and the Canje Bridge (rule 27).

A plate of 30 is a maximum, not a minimum you must exceed. It is not a parking-date plate (sign 35 uses calendar dates, not a speed numeral). It is not a horn ban. A provisional-licence holder remains under the learner cap even where a higher numeral is posted. Do not invent an unofficial "80/100 km/h everywhere" figure as a general limit.

End of restriction. Search the Code's illustrated names 1 to 40 for an "end of speed limit" or "end of prohibition" disc. It is not there. Do not invent a grey band across a numeral, a slash-across-the-old-limit ISO plate, or a black-and-white end-of-zone sign that Guyana's booklet does not print. The sitting answer is: obey the speed-limit plate you can see; obey the next posted numeral if there is one; otherwise fall back to the statutory and programme maxima already taught, and to any other plate that still faces you. Do not assume a restriction dies at a parish boundary because you memorised a European end-of-zone sign.

Never drive at such a speed that you cannot pull up well within the distance you can see to be clear. Go much more slowly if the road is wet or slippery. That Highway Code sentence still sits under sign 32. Chapter 8's stopping-distance table still applies: wet stopping distances are about double. A posted 30 on a wet East Coast evening is not a target to sit on.

Sign 33: use of horn prohibited

Sign 33, Use of horn prohibited. The illustration is a horn (trumpet) with a red diagonal. Do not sound the horn on that length. Quiet stretches near a hospital, a court, a church, or a signed silence zone are the usual idea. The Code does not print a list of building types on the caption; it prints the name. Obey the plate where it faces you.

Rule 76 is the sentence that survives both on and off the plate: sounding your horn does not give you the right of way and does not absolve you from taking every precaution to avoid an accident. A horn ban does not reverse that rule. Where the horn is allowed, it still is not a token that buys the junction.

Rule 68(g) still requires the horn to be in working order before you drive, together with the speedometer and lights. A working horn you must not use at sign 33 is not a contradiction. It is a tool you keep for places the plate does not cover. Do not invent a "short courtesy beep" exception the Code forgot to print. Do not invent an end-of-horn-ban disc the numbered list does not show. A cyclist about to overtake others should sound a bell (rule 56); that is a cycle rule, not a motor-horn permission through sign 33.

Rule 31 still requires signals of your intention, correctly, clearly, and in good time. Sign 33 bans the horn, not the arm or the indicator. Do not substitute a blast for a missing signal, and do not treat a missing blast as a missing signal.

Named plates for this section

The language of the road is signs, signals, and markings. Sign 30 is not sign 31. Sign 32 is not sign 35. Sign 33 is not a grant of silence that also grants right of way. Rule 78 ties them together: observe the speed limit, observe the sign, and still stop when Police in uniform require it.