Using headlights — Delaware Permit Test

Using headlights on the Delaware permit test — 5 rules, each with the reason behind it and a question on it while it is fresh.

The rules

Delaware law requires your headlights, not parking lights, to be on when driving after sunset or before sunrise.

Parking lights alone at dusk make a moving car look parked, or not there at all.

Delaware law requires your headlights (not parking lights) to be:

Delaware Driver Manual, p.62

Headlights must be on any other time you cannot see beyond 1000 feet.

In daytime fog a gray car with no lights blends into the road until it is right in front of you.

On any other time you cannot see beyond 1000 feet.

Delaware Driver Manual, p.62

Headlights must be on any time you use your windshield wipers.

Rain that needs wipers also makes an unlit car hard to see in the mirror.

On any time you use your windshield wipers.

Delaware Driver Manual, p.62

You must switch to low beams 500 feet before meeting another vehicle.

High beams left on as a car approaches blind its driver just when the two of you are closest.

Switched to low beams 500 feet before meeting another vehicle or when within 200 feet of the vehicle you are following.

Delaware Driver Manual, p.62

You must switch to low beams when you are within 200 feet of the vehicle you are following.

High beams behind a car glare off its mirrors into the eyes of the driver ahead.

Switched to low beams 500 feet before meeting another vehicle or when within 200 feet of the vehicle you are following.

Delaware Driver Manual, p.62

On the test

When must your headlights be on in Delaware?

After sunset or before sunrise. Parking lights alone at dusk make a moving car look parked, or not there at all. Delaware Driver Manual, p.62: “Delaware law requires your headlights (not parking lights) to be:”

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.

All Delaware permit topics

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.