Driving at night, especially on unlit roads, can be a nerve-wracking experience. The standard Lights In The Car that come with most vehicles are often adequate for well-lit city streets, but they frequently fall short when it comes to providing the visibility needed for safe driving in rural areas or challenging conditions. If you’ve ever felt your heart skip a beat when a deer darts out in front of your vehicle on a dark country road, you’re not alone. Many drivers recognize the limitations of their factory headlights and seek solutions to improve nighttime visibility and overall safety.
The Problem with Standard Car Lights: Seeing Isn’t Always Believing
How far ahead do your high beams actually illuminate the road? Typically, it’s only about 100 to 200 yards. When you’re traveling at 65 miles per hour, you cover 100 yards in a mere three seconds. This limited reaction time can be critically insufficient when encountering obstacles, whether it’s wildlife, debris, or sudden changes in the road. Slippery road conditions like rain, snow, or gravel further compound this issue by increasing braking distances and reducing maneuverability. While reducing speed is always a good practice in poor visibility, even slowing down to 45 mph only extends your reaction time to about four seconds. For those who frequently drive in remote areas where roads are poorly lit or completely dark, the need for superior car lights becomes abundantly clear.
The Solution: Aftermarket Driving Lights – A Brighter, Safer Drive
The answer to inadequate factory lighting lies in aftermarket driving lights. These auxiliary lights are designed to significantly enhance your vehicle’s illumination, extending your field of vision far beyond the reach of standard headlights. By projecting a powerful beam of light further down the road, driving lights provide you with precious extra seconds to react to potential hazards, making nighttime driving considerably safer and less stressful. Investing in quality driving lights is an investment in your safety and peace of mind, especially if you regularly navigate poorly lit roads.
Challenges of Mounting Additional Lights: Beyond the Factory Setup
While the benefits of driving lights are undeniable, the challenge often lies in how to effectively mount them to your vehicle, particularly if you own a standard car or SUV not initially designed for off-road accessories. Traditional mounting solutions can be complex, expensive, or even compromise vehicle safety.
Some enthusiasts resort to bolting on metal bars that extend from the vehicle’s frame, creating a hoop to which lights can be attached. However, this method can interfere with the vehicle’s bumper system, which is engineered to absorb low-speed impacts. Modifying the bumper in this way might transmit impact energy directly to the frame, potentially causing more damage in minor collisions and even affecting airbag deployment in unintended situations.
Mounting lights on roof racks or cargo baskets is another approach, but this introduces new problems. Aerodynamically, roof-mounted accessories can significantly reduce fuel efficiency. Furthermore, especially in lighter vehicles, they can generate considerable wind noise. From a visibility standpoint, positioning lights high above and behind the driver’s line of sight can also be counterproductive. Driving lights are designed to cast a wide beam, and when mounted on the roof, a portion of this light can reflect off the hood and back into your eyes, creating glare. In dusty or rainy conditions, roof lights can also cause distracting reflections from airborne particles, hindering rather than helping visibility. Similarly, ditch lights, mounted near the hood hinges, suffer from similar reflection and wind noise issues.
Hidden light mounts, integrated within the grille, are available for some popular off-road vehicles. While aesthetically pleasing, these can potentially obstruct airflow to the radiator, affecting engine cooling. Moreover, their performance can sometimes be compromised compared to externally mounted lights.
A Simple and Effective Mounting Solution: The License Plate Light Bar
To overcome these challenges and mount lights in the car without complex modifications or compromising safety, a remarkably simple and effective solution exists: the license plate mounted light bar. Products like the Lightforce Unibar offer an ingenious way to securely attach driving lights to almost any vehicle.
The beauty of the Unibar lies in its straightforward design. It utilizes the existing license plate mounting holes on your vehicle’s bumper, making installation incredibly easy and requiring no drilling or permanent modifications. By attaching to the bumper structure itself, the Unibar preserves the vehicle’s crashworthiness and avoids interfering with safety systems. Furthermore, it positions the lights in an ideal location – front and center, maximizing their effectiveness. The Unibar typically features multiple mounting holes, accommodating a variety of round, rectangular, or pod-style driving lights. Concerns about the strength of the bumper material are usually unfounded, as modern car bumpers are constructed from durable ABS plastic, designed to withstand significant forces and vibrations.
Choosing the Right Driving Lights for Your Car: Performance Matters
Once you have a mounting solution, selecting the right driving lights is crucial. For optimal performance, consider lights from reputable brands that provide transparent performance data based on independent testing. Lightforce Venoms, for example, are a popular choice known for their powerful output and reliable performance. A pair of these lights can dramatically extend your visibility range, providing significantly more reaction time. For instance, lights that offer one lux of illumination at 930 yards can increase your reaction time at 65 mph from a mere three seconds to a much safer 29 seconds. This difference can be transformative in critical situations, giving you ample time to react and avoid hazards.
Easy Installation with a Wiring Harness: DIY Friendly Upgrade
Installing driving lights can seem daunting, but with a dedicated wiring harness, the process becomes surprisingly straightforward. The Lightforce wiring harness and similar products provide all the necessary components and clear instructions to power your new lights and integrate them with your vehicle’s electrical system. Typically, these harnesses are designed to connect the driving lights to your high beam switch, allowing for seamless operation – the driving lights automatically activate when you switch on your high beams. If you have basic experience with car electrical systems or even home electrical wiring, you’ll likely find the installation process manageable, often taking just a couple of hours.
Conclusion: Transform Your Nighttime Driving Experience
Upgrading the lights in your car with aftermarket driving lights is a game-changer for nighttime driving safety and confidence. The ease of installation offered by license plate mounting bars like the Unibar, combined with the powerful illumination of lights like the Lightforce Venoms, makes this a highly accessible and impactful upgrade for any vehicle. Once you experience the enhanced visibility and safety of quality driving lights, you’ll wonder how you ever drove without them.
