Question:medium

According to Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 no person under the age of -------years shall drive a motor vehicle in any public place

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For the Motor Vehicles Act, remember the key age limits from Section 4: 16 for gearless scooters (historical), 18 for general motor vehicles (cars, motorcycles), and 20 for transport vehicles (buses, trucks).
Updated On: Jul 13, 2026
  • 20
  • 16
  • 18
  • 21
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The Correct Option is C

Approach Solution - 1

The trick in this question is not to confuse the general rule with its exceptions, so it helps to lay out Section 4 in full before picking an answer.

  1. State the general rule: Section 4(1) of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 sets eighteen years as the baseline minimum age for driving any motor vehicle in a public place.
  2. Note the carve-outs: The proviso lowers this to sixteen years only for a small, gearless, sub-50cc motor cycle, and Section 4(2) raises it to twenty years only for transport vehicles; neither of these is the "general" age the question is asking about.
  3. Discard the unsupported option: Twenty-one years does not appear anywhere in Section 4, so it can be discarded outright.

Reading the general rule against its narrow exceptions confirms the answer is 18.

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Approach Solution -2

It also helps to think about which age is the one every learner licence and driving licence applicant actually has to meet in practice, since that is what "general" means here.

  1. 20: This higher age only becomes relevant to someone seeking to drive a transport vehicle for commercial purposes, a smaller subset of drivers, not the ordinary applicant for a private car or two-wheeler licence.
  2. 16: This age is relevant only to a narrow category of low-powered motor cycles, and even then only as an exception; the vast majority of vehicles on the road are not covered by it.
  3. 18: This is the age every ordinary licence applicant, whether for a car, standard motor cycle or any other private vehicle, must satisfy before being allowed to drive in a public place, which is why it functions as the Act's general threshold.
  4. 21: This figure has no application under the Motor Vehicles Act to any class of driver at all, so it can be ruled out without further comparison.

Looking at which age applies to the ordinary driver, rather than a special category, again points to eighteen.

So, the correct answer is 18.

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