Sidelights switching on and off automatically while going around a roundabout

Today, I observed traffic going over a roundabout on an one-way narrow street. It was a small roundabout designed as a short pavement to allow larger vehicles to go over it if there’s not enough space. I noticed that difference car makes while doing the maneuver of going around/over this roundabout would automatically turn on the sidelights/parking lights and in an alternative way. While in the roundabout, the right sidelight would turn on and when it was out of the roundabout the left light would turn on while the right one would turn off. I’m assuming these were sidelights/parking lights as these were the lower lights on the front bumper of the cars I noticed this behaviour. I’m sure these weren’t DRL’s, or some kind of adaptive headlights. And definitely these weren’t the directional lights, as they were white (local drivers don’t seem to give too much thought on using directional lights on roundabouts, unfortunately!). One specific car model that seem to show the behaviour is the latest model of the Fiat Tipo, but I also saw VW and Mercedes doing this. These were all European models. Can anyone explain this?