The stock headlights on your car or truck might work fine on well-lit streets, but they probably aren鈥檛 powerful enough to enable safe driving on completely听unlit rural roads while motoring at or close to the speed limit. I detailed the solution鈥攁ftermarket driving lights鈥攊n a previous article听but neglected to explain one thing: how to mount them to a normal car.听
My wife鈥檚 best friend just moved to southwest Montana, where we live,听and was in desperate need of additional illumination for her Subaru. Rachael is building her dream house in Madison Valley while working in Bozeman, a 60-mile drive away. As a mental health therapist, she听often has to see clients after their own workday ends, which means she鈥檚 driving at night. And man, that drive is a doozy. Traveling from one river valley to the next, Rachael has to cross a mountain pass that鈥檚 positively treacherous in the winter, then follow a narrow, winding road through a canyon. Driving home after听dinner at her place the other night, I saw two deer hit by other cars.听
While Rachael plans to eventually build a modified 4×4鈥攕omething much more suitable for driving conditions here in Montana鈥攈er house construction currently precludes that budget. I wanted to help make her drive safer by adding lights to her Outback, but听lights typically听require aftermarket steel bumpers听or a permanently affixed roof rack听to provide the necessary mounting points. This illustrates a problem that I think prevents a lot of people from being able to drive with adequate lighting: there is no easy, affordable way to attach them to a normal car. Or at least there wasn鈥檛.听
How far ahead do your stock high beams shine? Probably 100 to 200 yards. At 65 miles per hour, you鈥檒l cover 100 yards in three seconds. That鈥檚 not nearly enough听time to hit your brakes or swerve to avoid a deer听or any other sort of obstacle. Slippery conditions, like snow, rain, or dirt, compound the problem.听Why not just slow down? You should, but dropping your speed to 45 mph听still only gives you four seconds to respond. People who drive out in the middle of nowhere have a real need for effective car lights.听
Scroll through Subaru hashtags on Instagram, or visit owners鈥 forums, and you鈥檒l see folks听trying to solve this problem. Some bolt on metal bars that extend from the vehicle鈥檚 frame听and out under the bumper, forming a hoop that you can use to attach lights. But this solution runs the risk of compromising the vehicle鈥檚 potential听to shrug off parking-lot-speed impacts without damage. Bumpers add a cushion between those impacts and a vehicle鈥檚 frame, resisting damage outright and reducing the amount of energy that鈥檚 transmitted to the frame, but these metal hoops will transmit that energy straight to the frame, which could lead to damage, even in a very low-speed accident. By increasing the deceleration听rate of the vehicle, it could also cause your airbags to fire in situations they shouldn鈥檛. I really didn鈥檛 want to have to pay听either of those bills for Rachael, so I ruled out that solution.听
Others听attach lights to roof racks听or cargo baskets. But there are听two problems that play into this: aerodynamics听and reflections. Adding stuff to your roof destroys your vehicle鈥檚 fuel economy. And听on听lightweight crossovers like听Subarus, which don鈥檛听tend to employ as many听sound-deadening materials as heavier trucks, stuff on your roof also adds an awful lot of wind noise. Mounting a light source up high and听behind your eyes is also problematic for vision. Even in spotlight beam patterns, driving lights are designed to provide a wide arc听of illumination. Put lights on your roof, and some of that illumination will hit your hood听and reflect back toward听you. Drive through dust听or precipitation, and those roof lights will also refract off those particles right in front of your eyes. Since driving lights are supposed to enhance your ability to see, not hinder it, I also ruled out mounting them to Rachael鈥檚 roof.听
Ditch lights (ones that attach under the trailing edge of your hood and sit in front of your A-pillars)听suffer the same problems as roof lights鈥攁nd with even more wind noise. So those were out from the beginning.听
There are some hidden light mounts available for popular off-road vehicles, like the Toyota Tacoma. With these, a light bar is mounted inside the vehicle鈥檚 grille, providing a visually neat solution that often requires very little modification. But they run the risk of altering the way air flows through a car鈥檚 carefully designed cooling system, and they may not perform as well as promised. I covered how to tell the difference between a genuinely effective driving light听and ones that simply don鈥檛 work in that previous article.听
To mount lights to Rachael鈥檚 Subaru without creating a bunch of problems, I knew I needed to find a mount that would position the lights听in front of the car, where they could be most effective, and yet wouldn鈥檛 compromise her vehicle鈥檚 crashworthiness. Enter the ($80). It鈥檚 one of those things that鈥檚 so simple, you can鈥檛 believe it didn鈥檛 already exist.听
By mounting it听to the existing license-plate bolt holes, the Unibar should be compatible with virtually any car or truck. And听by attaching to the bumper itself, the Unibar also leaves that crash structure intact and uncompromised. The Unibar also positions lights in the ideal spot, right smack in the middle of the car鈥檚 front-most point. Its two mounting holes will work with pretty much any round, rectangular, or pod driving light.听
My only concern was the strength of the bumper material that the Unibar bolts to. But听since most bumpers are made from thick ABS plastic, which is designed to retain听its shape for decades听while resisting impacts, vibrations, and all the other听forces experienced by a moving vehicle, I shouldn鈥檛 have worried. With the device attached, I鈥檓 unable to make it loosen or move at all, even when applying my full body weight.
For lights, I went with听a pair of six-inch ($658). Unlike some bigger names in the vehicle-lighting space, Lightforce actually tells its customers how its lights perform, with numbers pulled from independent, third-party testing. Providing one lux of illumination at 930 yards, a pair of these things increases the time Rachael has to respond to an obstacle at 65 mph听from three听to 29 seconds. Apply that to a situation like a deer crossing the road, and you can see the safety advantage that quality driving lights provide. With three seconds to work with, you barely have time to react at all; with 29 seconds, you have time to analyze the situation, come up with a plan for avoiding it, and then act safely. The result is simply transformative.听
To set up听the lights, I also used Lightforce鈥檚 $79 . It provides everything you need to power the lights听and allows you to operate them via听your vehicle鈥檚 high-beam switch. Run them just like you would your stock headlights:听Switch on your high beams when you need them, and the driving lights will turn on. Switch off your high beams around other drivers, and your driving lights will turn off. If you鈥檝e ever rewired or installed an electrical outlet at home, you already听have the skills necessary to do this. Expect the job to take about two hours.听
A week or so after I gave Rachael her car back, she stopped by for a glass of wine. I asked her how many more deer she was seeing on her nightly commute with her new lights. In response, she just stared at me in wide-eyed shock. Shortly after, her husband purchased an identical setup for his car. Once you drive with effective lighting, you鈥檒l never go without it again.