Road safety is always important, whether you’re towing your boat or just popping out to the shops. For driving during the winter, when we spend so much more time in our cars in the dark, IAM (Institute of Advanced Motorists) has given us these top tips for checking and use vehicle lights.

1. Check you car’s lights - You need to check all your lights on a regular basis. You will, of course, need some assistance to do this, but it’s well worth it if you want to be able to see the road ahead and avoid dangers. Check all your lights including hazard lights, fog lights and indicators.

2. Use the lights - When you’re away from street lighting your visibility will be limited to the range of the headlights, and this varies greatly between dipped and full-beam so be sure to slow down when driving with dipped head lights. When you do have your full-beam on, dip them for oncoming traffic to avoid dazzling other drivers. If oncoming drivers forget to dip their lights, slow down and give your eyes time to adjust to avoid blindness.

3. Your judgement - It is difficult to judge approaching speed in the dark so take extra care when making a manoeuvre and always allow traffic to pass when waiting to pull out at a junction.

4. Using fog lights - Only turn on fog lights when visibility is below 100 metres. Leaving them on after fog has disappeared is not only an offence but is a danger to other motorists.