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About this tool
US road rules for visitors: which side to drive on, speed limits in mph and km/h, state blood-alcohol limits and licence or IDP requirements.
This explainer sets out what a visitor needs to know before driving in the United States: you drive on the right in a left-hand-drive car, every sign is in miles per hour, and traffic law is set state by state rather than nationally. It applies the rules that are uniform — the 0.08 % per se blood-alcohol limit adopted by 49 states, Utah's stricter 0.05 %, the federal 0.04 % for commercial drivers and zero tolerance under 21 — alongside the state maximum speed limit, converted to km/h so European and Asian drivers can read it.
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Speed maximums and the alcohol limit change at the state line, so the state you pick drives the answer.
Every limit is shown in both units, because US signs give no metric equivalent.
Right turn on red, school-bus stop arms, four-way stops and open-container laws, explained plainly.
0.08 % blood alcohol concentration for drivers aged 21 and over in every state except Utah, which has used 0.05 % since 30 December 2018. Commercial drivers are held to 0.04 % under federal rule 49 CFR 383.51, and drivers under 21 face zero-tolerance laws in all 50 states with thresholds between 0.00 % and 0.02 %. You can still be arrested below the limit if an officer judges your driving impaired.
Not if your licence is printed in English — a valid foreign licence is accepted from a visitor in every state, and you should carry your passport with it. If your licence is in another language, carry an International Driving Permit issued under the 1949 Geneva Convention, which is the convention the United States belongs to. The permit is only a translation and is never valid without the original licence.
There is no national limit; the federal 55 mph cap was repealed in 1995. Rural interstate maximums now run from 60 mph in Hawaii and 65 mph in New York up to 80 mph across much of the mountain west, with a single 85 mph stretch on the SH-130 toll road in Texas. Residential streets default to 25 mph in most states and school zones drop to 15 to 25 mph when children are present.
Yes, in all 50 states, after coming to a complete stop and yielding to pedestrians and cross traffic — unless a sign prohibits it at that junction. The famous exception is New York City, which bans right turn on red across the whole city, so a visitor who learned the rule in California will be ticketed in Manhattan.