Lights

Cars have allot of lights. Sidelights, headlights, main beam etc. It can sometimes be confusing which one to use and when.

So lets get started with DRL’s (daytime running lights) these are lights that turn on when the car is started, these are not be confused with sidelights that many modern cars will use instead of DRL’s.

How do you know if your car uses DRL’s? DRL’s are exclusive to the front of the car, whereas sidelights will illuminate the front and the back.

In the example images, when the car lights are set to AUTO, the car will use the front sidelights as DRL’s, then when the car detects its is getting dark it will switch to use the cars sidelights.

Headlights, whenever we refer to headlights we are almost always talking about dipped headlights, these are lights that are primarily used to light up the road when its dark. As mentioned they are dipped meaning they point down towards the road. Whereas main beam/ Full beam is the cars much brighter light that points higher to illuminate more of the road.

As your main bean headlights are much brighter you should turn these off when approaching another car to avoid dazzling them.

Hazzard lights should only be used if you are blocking traffic or warning other road users of a hazard ahead.

Break lights, these turn on when you break, these are very intense lights so be aware that when sitting in traffic avoid holding the break as it can dazzle cars waiting behind you.

fog lights are to be used when visibility is less than 100m, again fog lights are incredibly bright so should then be turned off once you are out of the fog. As you an see in this example image only one side has a fog light, this is very common for cars to only use one fog light.

Reversing lights, making other road users behind you aware when you are reversing. Similarly to fog lights manufactures will typically only have one reversing light on the car but many cars will also have two reversing lights.