A tire mark left from a tire that is not rotating and has parallel striations is called a

• A. Drag Mark
• B. Skid Mark
• C. Imprint
• D. Scuff Mark

Answer: (B)

When a tire is not rotating and drags across the roadway, the mark it leaves is a skid mark. The key idea is that the wheel has locked and the rubber slides along the surface, producing a continuous, dark smear in the direction of travel. The parallel striations you can see come from the tread scraping along the pavement as the tire slides, which is characteristic of a locked-wheel skid.

Imprints occur when a tire sinks into a soft surface and leaves a mold of the tread, not a dragging smear. Scuff marks are lighter, irregular rub marks from rubbing against an object, not sustained sliding of a locked tire. Drag marks describe dragging movement with little to no rotation in some contexts, but the defining feature here is the locked-wheel sliding that creates a continuous skid with tread-aligned striations.