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A light comes on. You do not know what it is. So you decide it is probably fine, and you keep driving.
Most of the time it is fine. The problem is that the same habit covers the three or four lights that mean stop the car now.
The symbols are pictures because a car gets sold across borders. There is an international standard for them, so a rented car in another country lights up the same shapes as your own.
That also means they are drawings of things nobody has owned for fifty years. The oil light is an oil can. The battery light is a battery from a diagram.
Before you work out what the shape is, look at what colour it is.
Red means take action now. The AA's words are immediate action. Amber or orange means something needs checking, soon, by a garage. Green or blue means a thing is simply switched on.
Which drawer does each one go in?
Tap an item, then a bucket
The oil can lights up red on a motorway. What is it telling you?
An engine holds a thin film of oil between moving metal. The film is what stops them touching.
Pressure keeps that film there. Lose the pressure and the film is gone, and metal grinds on metal at thousands of turns a minute.
Minutes of that can end an engine.
The battery symbol does not mean your battery is flat. It means the car has stopped charging it.
Everything is now running off whatever is stored, and it will not be topped up. Lights, wipers and the engine itself will all fade together.
The AA's advice on it is to stop in a safe place and switch off.
The engine light comes on and it is flashing, not steady. What does that change?
An engine that overheats can warp permanently in a few minutes.
Pull over, switch off, and let it cool right down before you open anything. A hot cooling system is under pressure. Opening the cap sprays boiling liquid.
Wait until it is cool to the touch, then check the coolant.
It comes on for the handbrake being up, for low brake fluid, or for a fault.
Check the handbrake first, because it is usually that. If the handbrake is down and it stays on, the pedal tells you the rest.
A pedal that feels normal is a job for the garage. A soft or sinking pedal is not a driving matter.
The ABS light is on. Do your brakes still work?
The airbag light means the system has faulted somewhere.
The car drives exactly the same. Nothing feels different. In a crash, the bag may simply not go off.
That is why it is treated as urgent even though nothing is wrong to drive.
That is a tyre seen end on, with a bulge, and an exclamation mark inside it.
Underinflated tyres wear at the edges, use more fuel, and get hot enough on a long fast drive to come apart.
It is safe to drive to somewhere with an air line. It is not safe to ignore for a month.
Match each light to what it actually means.
Tap one side, then its match
Turn the key and watch. Nearly all of them light up for a second, then go out.
That is the car proving each bulb works. So a light that never comes on at all is not good news. It usually means somebody removed it.
This is worth knowing before you look at a used car.
Start it cold and watch the whole panel wake up. A seller who has taken a bulb out has told you something about the car, and about themselves, without saying a word.
You will not remember every symbol, and you do not need to.
Red means stop somewhere safe and switch off, even if the car feels fine. Amber means make an appointment, not a decision on the hard shoulder.
Almost every expensive story starts with someone deciding to just get home.
Open the glovebox and find the handbook. There is a page of these symbols in every one.
Photograph that page. It is now on your phone, which is where you will be standing when you need it.