Drivers across the UK are ignoring the warning signs on their dashboard, putting their car and their own safety at risk according to a new survey.

In a survey of 2,381 drivers conducted by car maintenance website Fixter, one in 10 motorists admitted that they were currently driving around with a warning light on their dashboard. Eighty-nine per cent of those questioned said they had knowingly driven around with a warning light on in their car, but only 26 per cent actually knew what the warning symbol meant.

More than half of the drivers in the survey admitted that they were more than likely to wait for payday before getting the problem sorted, with the average waiting time to fix an issue 16 days.

The survey also revealed that a worrying number of British drivers know about car maintenance with only 26 per cent saying they had successfully changed a spare tyre. A huge 81 per cent of drivers said they didn’t know how many miles they could drive before changing the oil.

Fixter spokesman Matt Lewis said: “When you’re going through the process of learning to drive, you learn the basics of taking care of your car, from how to check the oil levels to what the warning lights on your dashboard mean. To hear that so many drivers aren’t concerned when these lights appear, or even know what some key components of their car do, is shocking.

“If any warning lights appear on the dashboard, drivers should see a mechanic as soon as possible. A warning light could mean a myriad things and none of them are good – particularly if it’s a red warning light. It might not be serious to begin with, but waiting 16 days can make the situation a whole lot worse.”

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