Required equipment lights — Delaware Permit Test
Required equipment lights on the Delaware permit test — 7 rules, each with the reason behind it and a question on it while it is fresh.
The rules
In Delaware, high beams must be aimed and strong enough to reveal persons and vehicles at least 350 feet ahead.
High beams too weak to light the road far ahead leave a driver at speed no time to stop for a person in the lane.
High beams must be aimed and strong enough to reveal persons and vehicles at least 350 feet ahead.
Low beams must reveal people at least 100 feet ahead and be adjusted so they do not strike the eyes of an approaching driver.
A low beam aimed too high blinds the driver coming the other way just as the two cars pass.
Low beams must reveal people at least 100 feet ahead and must be so adjusted as not to strike the eyes of an approaching driver.
Every Delaware car needs at least two red taillights on the rear, visible from 500 feet.
A car with dark taillights on a night road is invisible to the driver behind until it is too late to brake.
At least two, original design, red lights are required on the rear. They must be visible from a distance of 500 feet.
The license plate light must be white and strong enough for the plate number to be seen from 50 feet.
A plate nobody can read at night lets a car that hits someone drive off unidentified.
License Plate Light - Must be white and strong enough for the number on the registration plate to be seen from a distance of 50 feet.
Stop lights must come on when the brake pedal is pushed and be visible from at least 100 feet in normal sunlight; if a car has two, both must work.
A driver behind a car whose brake lights are out keeps going at full speed while that car slows down.
It must light when the brake pedal is pushed and be visible from a distance of at least 100 feet in normal sunlight.
Vehicles made after 1953 must have two turn signals in front and two in the rear, visible at least 100 feet in normal sunlight.
A turn signal no one can see in daylight gives the cars around you no warning that you are about to turn.
All vehicles manufactured after 1953 must be equipped with two turn signals in front and two in rear.
Vehicles made after 1977 need at least six reflectors, and reflectors must be visible to 500 feet.
A parked car with its lights off is seen at night only by what its reflectors throw back.
Vehicles manufactured after 1977 require a minimum of six reflectors, two amber on the front sides, two red on the rear sides and two red to the rear of the vehicle.
On the test
How far ahead must Delaware high beams reveal persons and vehicles?
At least 350 feet. High beams too weak to light the road far ahead leave a driver at speed no time to stop for a person in the lane. Delaware Driver Manual, p.60: “High beams must be aimed and strong enough to reveal persons and vehicles at least 350 feet ahead.”
How this works
Most practice tests hand you a bank of questions and leave the manual somewhere else. This one puts them together.
You read one law and the reason behind it, then answer a question on that law while it is still fresh. Get it right and you move on; get it wrong and you have found the gap while it is cheap to fix, not on the morning of the exam.
Learning one rule at a time, and proving it immediately, is what turns a manual you skimmed into something you actually know — and it makes studying feel like getting somewhere rather than like waiting to find out.
What it costs
- One payment, once — not a subscription. Nothing renews and there is nothing to cancel, for an exam you sit one time.
- Free to start: a 10-question test and the first section of cards. No sign-up and no account.
- Paying opens the rest of the cards, unlimited full-length practice tests, and retests built from exactly the questions you got wrong.
- Every level up to Prepared — 3 tests passed in a row.
- Do the work, fail the real exam, and we refund you.
Where these come from
Every rule here is checked against Delaware Driver Manual, published by the Delaware Division of Motor Vehicles, and against the state code itself. Last checked 2026-10-05.
- src/assets/drivers-manuals/DE.pdf (Delaware Driver Manual, July 2026, Delaware Division of Motor Vehicles, retrieved 2026-09-14; sha256 pinned in SOURCES.json)
- src/assets/drivers-manuals/DE.pages.txt (scripts/de-text.sh: plain pdftotext cropped to keep the section tab out, physical 47 under -layout; the fixture every citation here was cut from and verified against; sha256 pinned in SOURCES.json)
- src/assets/drivers-manuals/DE-exam.html (Delaware Division of Motor Vehicles, Driver's License Exam, https://dmv.de.gov/DriverServices/drivers_license/index.shtml?dc=dr_lic_written, read 2026-10-05; states both exam figures; sha256 pinned under examSource)
- https://dmv.de.gov/menu/forms_manuals.shtml (read 2026-10-05; links the manual)
- https://dmv.de.gov/DriverServices/faqs/index.shtml?dc=dr_faq_general (read 2026-10-05; its 30 and 24 are the exam page's figures before 2024-12, per the Internet Archive)