Why do they do this? I've been working on my wifes grand caravan in stalling a remote starter, the van had a lot of problems, ran rough, stalled, etc. I figuered it was the remote starter so I removed the whole thing. The problem turned out to be the MAP sensor. After I removed everything I noticed the dash lights were out. Great, another problem. Crawl under teh dash for the fuse box. Ahh, there it is, dash lights. I pull the fuse and look at it. Hmm, not blown. Put it back, still no lights. Well, I'm real cold, tired, and frustrated, I'll fix it later. My wife noticed it and got on my case. I dont have time I say, and I'm not sure what'* wrong, the fues is not blown. She still keeps on my. I go log on to the dodge forums and do a search. What do you know, others have had teh same problem. No lights and fuse not blown. I scan down and one member suggested checking the parking light fuse under the hood. So I go out in to the cold, pop the hood and take a look. Nope, not blown. So I take another look under the dash. Hay, left parking light, and right parking light fuses. So I go check the lights, the right light is out. So I pull that fuse, sure enough it'* blown. Ask my wife to pick up a box of fuses the next day. She does, then comes out to where I work, I run out and pop it in, dash lights. Now really, why would anyone use the fuse labled dash lights for the dash lights.

On the '90s bville,* some of the lighting fuses are fed by the other lighting fuses.. makes it a bitch to diagnose some things...

Well as usual I won't be praising Chrysler here... My brother has 1995 Plymouth Voyager. The rear window wiper motor is, from what I'm told, notorious for failure. Chrysler, in their infinite wisdom seems to have fused the rear wiper motor on the same circuit as some/all of the SIR system. When the rear wiper motor fuse blows, the airbag light illuminates on the cluster. Change the fuse, light goes out. Use the wiper and after a few seconds it quits and the airbag light comes back on. Engineering at its finest. Way to go Chrysler!!!

They run the circuit like that so if either side of the running lights fails you will see it from the driver'* seat. The bulb out indicator only works if the circuit is still powered. If the circuit is still powered and you lose a taillight, you get a bulb out indicator. It is a simple way of alerting the driver of the lighting failure. It got your attention, didn't it?

I bet if you pulled that dash light fuse the dash lights wouldn't work.

I'm not sure I like this logic. First, a responsible vehicle owner will (and I know this may open a whole new can of worms) will do a vehicle walk around and check these things on a regular basis. Personally, I would not like to have my instrument cluster lighting fail in the middle of a long, dark highway trip at night only because I had a running light go out.

It sounds like the dash lights would only fail if the power to either side of the running lights failed. Usually that will only happen if there is a serious problem on that circuit. If it was a simple bulb failure, it shouldn't blow a fuse. I'm sure I would rather change a fuse under the hood than the printed circuit inside the dash for the dash lights. Some more of that engineer logic.
I'm not saying I agree with it necessarily, but I do understand why some manufacturers do things like that. Since I don't know what year Dodge we are discussing, I can only guess that it is after the Benz influence. The Europeans generally take a different, more fanatical approach to vehicle safety. From what I have heard, in some European countries there are severe penalties for safety violations like having a running light out. That is why there are almost always 2 or three bulbs on one tail light fixture. In Germany you can get in trouble for not having clean headlights, hence all those cool little wipers and squirters. Here in the States, people get away with putting tinted covers on their DOT approved tail lights and head lights.