After the green signal is on, you are required to

Explanation

First make sure no pedestrian is still inside the crossing, then move off.

The light in the picture shows red and amber at the same time, meaning it is about to turn green. The pedestrian markings are right in front of your car, and the blue lorry on the right has hidden part of those same markings from your view. That hiding is the core of the question.

The rule: when the permitting signal comes on, the driver is obliged to give way to pedestrians who have not finished crossing the carriageway and to vehicles that are completing their passage through the junction. Green is permission to move, not an announcement that the way is clear.

The safety reason can be summed up in one image: a pedestrian who entered the crossing when his light was green is now behind the lorry and you cannot see him; nor can he see you, and he carries on believing his way is still open. If you accelerate at the first instant of green, the collision in the blind spot happens precisely there. Low speed does not help either, because there is no distance in which to react.

Worth memorising: wherever a large vehicle is standing beside you, assume there is a pedestrian behind it. A one- or two-second pause at the moment of green and a look at the edge of the lorry is exactly the behaviour the exam is asking of you. The trap of the question is the option "it's green, go", which looks logical on the surface.

• Moving off immediately when the light turns green looks correct on the surface, but it ignores the priority of a pedestrian who has not yet finished crossing — especially in the part of the crossing that the lorry beside you has covered.

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