The passion of offroad is all about pushing limits, exploring, and beating the mundane. Simultaneously the possibility of danger has been drastically increased. Adding enough illumination is never wrong, but it's more crucial to add the right lights at the right places.
Chase light is a kind of light that has been easily overlooked while it's essential to the safety of you and your whole offroad group. However, there are few options on the market, and the prices are way too high that you may easily give up getting one. So we've summarized four important things you must know before buying a chase light in this article to make your choice easier.
- Why chase light is so important?
- Types of chase lights
- Lighting Color
- Beam Pattern
1. Why chase light is so important?
The front of your vehicle isn’t the only place where you need excellent visibility while off-roading. The rear of the car is equally important, especially when you're wheeling with your group.
The chase light is an essential part of the rear illumination. Mounting at the rear of your vehicle to increase the rear light output, especially add visibility in harsh weather conditions so that your vehicle can be seen by the groups behind you.
No matter exploring a forest trail in heavy fog, or kicking up some heavy dust at the dunes, chase lights are always ready to penetrate the dust & fog to provide sufficient rear illumination for you. Simultaneously it's much easier for those behind you to control the car distance so they can slow down to avoid a collision or speed up to be not left far behind.
Besides, some of the most common and dangerous risks to off-roading result from extreme & changeable weather. In some harsh foggy, snowy, or rainy days, chase lights play a similar role as the front fog lights, drastically improving the rear lights output to ensure your safety from avoiding rear-end collisions.
2. Types of chase lights
Though playing a key role in rear illumination, most options of chase lights on the market now are mainly light bars with extremely high prices. They're mostly offering for professional offroad while ignoring the needs of most offroad enthusiasts.
In reality, due to the compact size and relatively lightweight, light pods are way more convenient than light bars. More installation options and more reasonable prices making them the perfect choice for offroad chase lights.
Therefore, we've launched a whole collection of rear chase light pods, including our most cost-effective and most suitable chase lights for you:
https://www.led-colight.com/collections/rear-chase-lights
3. Lighting Color
To achieve the purpose of cutting dust and penetrating heavy snow and fog, yellow is always the best choice. The principle is similar to fog lights.
Fog & dust are essentially small particles, thus the light shifted away from the blue end of the spectrum penetrates better because it doesn't scatter in the fog & dust as much and create glare that makes it even harder to see.
Our best-selling fog lights-- Colight 3.5 inch R2 Series Round Driving Fog light Pods can also perform great as a rear chase light. Fully improve the rear visibility at a very reasonable price.
https://www.led-colight.com/products/3-5inch-round-auxiliary-fog-light-pods
4. Beam Pattern
Faced with different lighting needs, it is crucial to choose the right beam pattern. When it comes to rear chase lights, a spot beam is more suitable than a flood beam to penetrate the sand & fog.
The reflector and the lens of spot lights can fully utilize & concentrate the light so as to illuminate further places. However, the chase lights don't need to penetrate the rear as far as possible, unless you want to blind your groups behind you. A spot light pod with a suitable irradiation distance is the top choice as a chase light.
Fitted with three 10w LEDs, the Colight 4 inch Q2 Series Triangle Motocycle Light Pods can produce a lab-tested 1 lux@180m and 4400lm per light. Combined with three 30° reflectors, it throws a wide range spot beam, making them an ideal broad mid-distance auxiliary. The 3000K yellow light can easily penetrate any sand & fog.
The best-selling Colight Rob2 Pro Series Driving Light Pods have six arbitrary combinations of white/yellow light with diffused corrugated lens/flood concave lens/spot convex lens. The Rob2 Pro Spot beam can reach 1lux@370meters, especially useful at higher offroading speeds as a perfect chase light.
Check the video from Keep It Dirty Off-Road for the detailed installation using our Rob2 Pro as chase lights on Raptor:
Colight 3 inch amber side shooter light pods also feature an additional amber strobe mode that can largely add your rear visibility.
Safety is always important for off-road. It poses its fair share of challenges, but there are plenty of tips and tricks to keep you safe and enjoyable. Time to pick a perfect chase light with reasonable prices and the ideal pattern to get into the wonderful world of four-wheeling.
