this post was submitted on 22 Jul 2026
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It's actually completely legal to cross single white lines. Only double white lines and solid yellow lines are illegal to cross.
You can cross them if you have a valid reason to do that, my argument would stand also with a broken line: it delimits the driving lane you are to drive on. Randomly deviating from it is of course not allowed, only while passing or having another valid reason to do that, while making sure you don’t endanger anyone.
@artyom @Etnaphele Depends on your jurisdiction. In mine, it's illegal to do a turn over a single white line.
It's never legal to pull into the shoulder?
Depends what the shoulder is? The traffic rules for all EU countries still lack a bit of harmonization, but the general idea is that:
Our edge lines (used on smaller motorways) are usually spaced out, so you are able to drive over it. But it's still usually better you pull off somewhere instead if possible.
If you're driving on a large motorway that doesn't have an acceptable amount of space to pull over to the shoulder, it's usually a solid line with rumble strips. It's unacceptable to stand on the shoulder of a road with 110+ km/h limit.
And yes, solid line - even a single solid line - may never be crossed.
Many years ago I failed my license test only because of that: I merged off from the acceleration lane before it became a dotted line.
It isn't.