Drivers are only just realising what common dashboard warning lights really mean

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As a driver, it's important to know the rules of the road.

But after time, road users might forget all the things they learnt during their all-important motoring exams. Knowing the meaning of the lights on your dashboard is very crucial as it enables you to communicate with other drivers on the road.

Now one expert on TikTok shared an insight into the dashboard lights many people seem to forget. In a post online, Rebecca, who boasts 33,100 followers, described the five important symbols – and when to really use them behind the wheel.

In a lengthy post, she said: "What do lights mean? Now someone has asked me to run through what lights we have in the car and what they will do when we use them, so let's run through what we have."

First up, Rebecca explained the dipped beam which is used when your visibility is reduced due to darkness or some weather conditions. She said: "Only use if your visibility is reduced but to no less than 100 metres ahead of you."

Next up were the fog lights, which are important to use even when it's not actually foggy. Rebecca explained: "Your visibility could be reduced also due to heavy rain so it's important you do use your fog lights if visibility has been reduced to less than 100 metres.

"We then have our full beam and this is for when we're driving at night and it will give us so much better view of the road ahead. But we need to make sure we don't blind other road users so we will never use the full beam if we have other road users ahead of us."

After she explained when to use parking lights as she claimed these are important for parking on the side of the road at night, or on a street where drivers are going more than 30mph. "You would therefore turn on the side lights or known as parking lights," she said.

"This is so your presence is known but you're not blinding people with your dipped beam." She continued: "We also have our hazard warning lights and these can be used for a variety of situations but when your vehicle is posing hazard to other road users.

"This may be that you've broken down on the side of the road and you need to pop your hazard lights on to warn others, it could even be when traffic is slowing down considering and you want to warn others of the extreme change of speed."

Since the video was shared, it's safe to say many drivers were appreciative of the clip as it garnered 800 likes and dozens of comments.

One said: "Need to let about 50% of road users know about what you said about full beam." Another added: "Surely you shouldn't be driving at night if you don't know what things are."

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