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California road sign M4-9aL — Left arrow for bicycle and pedestrian detour routing

The place names, route numbers and distances shown are the examples used in the federal reference drawing. On the road, this sign carries the local ones.

MUTCD M4-9aL · Route markers and plaques

Left arrow for bicycle and pedestrian detour routing

What it means

Left arrow for bicycle and pedestrian detour routing.

What to do about it

It is a route marker: it identifies the highway you are on or heading toward, so you can confirm you are on the right road. (MUTCD M4-9aL.)

Practice this on the real test format

Signs are the part of the DMV written test people fail on, because reading them is a skill rather than a fact to memorize. Aprobify drills all 1034 of them, and tells you why each answer is what it is.

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Sign designations follow the MUTCD and the California MUTCD published by Caltrans; meanings are checked against the California Driver's Handbook (DL 600, rev. 6/2025). Edited by Fernando Aguilera. Aprobify is not affiliated with the California DMV.

Signs in the same family

These sit next to it in the route markers and plaques series — the ones most easily mixed up with it.

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