How to Do a Three-Point Turn

Turn around on a narrow road without touching a driveway. · Updated July 12, 2026

The three-point turn — some manuals call it a K-turn or broken U-turn — turns your car around on a road too narrow for a U-turn. It's scored on many state road tests, and it's really three slow movements with a full traffic check before each one:

Signal right, pull to the right edge and stop. Check mirrors and blind spots — you need the road clear in both directions for the whole maneuver, so wait for a real gap.
Signal left, turn the wheel fully left, and cross the road slowly until your front wheels near the opposite edge. Stop before the curb — touching it costs points.
Shift to reverse, wheel fully right, look over your shoulder — actually turn your head; examiners score the look, not the mirror glance — and back until you have room to clear the curb ahead.
Shift to drive, straighten out, and accelerate smoothly in the new direction.

🎯 What examiners actually score: the head checks before every movement, keeping it to three points (a five-point turn on a wide street signals poor judgment), staying off both curbs, and reasonable pace — slow is fine, frozen is not. In states with published scoring, "examiner intervention" ends the test — if traffic appears mid-turn, finish calmly; don't freeze in lane.

Practice on a quiet residential street about two lanes wide. If your state's test includes it, it usually comes right after the straight-line driving — early, while you're most nervous, so overlearn it.

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