Maine gives you 30 questions and lets you miss six. It also asks for 70 hours of supervised driving, one of the highest requirements in the country, and calls almost everything by a different name than the state you came from. This page collects every figure worth committing to memory.
70 hours, not 50
Most states settle on 50 hours of supervised driving before the road test. Maine asks for 70, including 10 at night. That is not paperwork for its own sake: narrow coastal roads with no shoulder, long rural stretches with moose on them, and winters that turn a familiar road into something else. Seventy hours is roughly what it takes to meet most of that at least once with an adult beside you.
It is the BMV, and it is OUI
Two naming differences trip people up. Maine’s agency is the Bureau of Motor Vehicles, so every form says BMV rather than DMV. And Maine calls impaired driving OUI, Operating Under the Influence, rather than DUI or DWI. The rules match the rest of the country; the vocabulary does not.
Speed limits
These are the statutory defaults under 29-A M.R.S. §2074, which apply unless a sign says otherwise.
| Where | Limit |
|---|---|
| School zone, during recess or opening and closing hours | 15 mph |
| Business or residential area, or built-up portion | 25 mph |
| All other public ways | 45 mph |
Under §2073 the Commissioner of Transportation may not set a maximum above 60 mph, or above 75 mph on the interstate system and other divided controlled-access highways, and may not set maximums for the Maine Turnpike at all.
Alcohol
| Driver | Illegal at |
|---|---|
| Age 21 and over | 0.08% BAC |
| Under 21 | Zero tolerance |
You can still be charged below 0.08% if alcohol is impairing your driving. Refusing a chemical test after a lawful OUI arrest brings an automatic suspension under implied consent, separate from any conviction.
Distances and following
| Rule | Distance |
|---|---|
| No parking from a fire hydrant | 15 feet |
| No parking from a crosswalk | 20 feet |
| No parking from a stop sign or traffic signal | 30 feet |
| Following distance, dry pavement | 3 seconds |
| Following distance, rain or poor conditions | 4 seconds or more |
The permit timeline
| Item | Rule |
|---|---|
| Minimum age | 15 |
| Driver education | Mandatory under 18, certificate goes to the BMV |
| Permit validity | 2 years |
| Hold the permit, under 21 | 6 months |
| Hold the permit, 21 or over | 3 months |
| Intermediate license | From 16 |
| Intermediate restrictions end | At 18, or after 270 days without violations, whichever comes first |
A violation restarts the 270-day clock, so the two routes out are not independent: lose the clean run late and you are simply waiting for your eighteenth birthday.
Moose are not just bigger deer
Maine has one of the largest moose populations in the lower forty-eight, concentrated north of Portland and Bangor.
A moose stands well above hood height and its coat is dark, so headlights often fail to pick up the body until you are close. In a collision the legs give way and the mass comes through the windshield rather than over the hood. That is exactly why the answer is brake hard and stay in your lane rather than swerve into oncoming traffic or a tree. They move most at dawn and dusk, and most often in late spring and autumn.
Roads with nowhere to go
- Away from the interstate, roads are narrow, winding and often shoulderless, with stone walls and trees right at the edge. If something appears in your lane there is frequently no escape route
- Black ice forms on bridges and shaded curves first
- Frost heaves buckle the surface in spring
- Coastal fog can take visibility to almost nothing within minutes on an otherwise clear day
Use this properly
Six wrong answers out of thirty is reasonable room, and the written test is not really the hard part in Maine — the 70 hours are. Start logging early, because 10 of them have to be at night and winter darkness arrives fast here. A cheat sheet is the last read-through rather than the study plan. Read the Maine Motorist Handbook, use this page to check the numbers stuck, then take the full practice test until you are consistently above 27 out of 30. For documents and the whole process, see the Maine permit guide.
Disclaimer: Pass The Permit is an independent study resource and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to the Maine Bureau of Motor Vehicles or any government agency. Laws change and local ordinances vary. Always confirm current figures against the official Maine Motorist Handbook and Title 29-A of the Maine Revised Statutes before relying on them.