In Missouri, all drivers, regardless of age, must obtain an instruction permit before taking the driving (road) test for a driver’s license. The instruction permit allows you to practice driving under supervision. One crucial requirement to obtain an instruction permit is to pass three official tests: a vision test, a road signs test, and a written permit (knowledge) test on driving theory. You must take the road signs test and written knowledge test at a Missouri State Highway Patrol (MSHP) driver examination station, not online. If you’re under 18, you must also provide signed consent from a parent or guardian. A driver’s education course is not required of drivers of any age.
All questions on the road signs and written tests are based on information in the official Missouri DOR driver’s 2025 handbook (Missouri DOR Handbook (MO Driver's Manual) 2025). We provide English and Spanish versions of this manual for your convenience. They can be easily downloaded from this webpage in PDF format.
Think it’ll be easy to pass the written and road signs tests after you’ve read the manual once or twice? Think again! In 2020 – 2023, a whopping 61.0% – more than half – of test takers failed on their first attempt.
You should do more to ensure you pass. Please follow our entire test preparation program, including our graduated series of practice tests accompanied by our AI assistant. It can give you hints and explanations and answer your questions to help you learn driving theory. We guarantee our program works!
We have also created an audiobook of the English version of the official driver’s manual. It’s formatted as a downloadable series of 15 MP3 files, one for each chapter of the handbook: The Missouri Driver License, The Driver Exam, Rules of the Road, and so on. The longest chapter is Chapter 1: The Missouri Driver License, whose running time is 58 minutes and 28 seconds. The total running time of this audiobook is approximately 4 hours, 31 minutes, and 21 seconds, so you should be able to go through the whole thing in a few days.
There’s more to passing the written and road signs tests than knowing the material. To help you get ready for the big day, we offer another tool: our permit test study guide (available elsewhere on this website). It covers how to put yourself in the right frame of mind for the test, what documents to take to the DOR, fees you may have to pay, and frequently missed test questions.