Tacoma Chase Light: What is It & Why Do I Need It?

A chase bar is a safety feature for off-road vehicles that combines running, brake, reverse and turn signal into a single light bar. Although most companies advertise a chase light for your benefit (of increasing rear visibility) I think it’s more practical as a safety light to your crew’s benefit – specifically the driver right behind you. On trails, your vehicle can kick up a lot of dust and it creates harsh visibility for the driver behind. A bright running light from a chase bar can act as a beacon to prevent the driver behind you from crashing into you – even during the daytime.

There are other use cases for a chase light bar. Most chase light bars come with multi-functioning lights. For example, the KC Hilites Chase LED Bar comes with 3 different LED colors: red, amber white. You can wire these LEDs up for different configurations, but a common setup would be outer reds for either a brake light or turn signal. Inner ambers for the “follow” light. Center white for a backup/reverse light or just wired independently to use as needed. Whatever your use-case may be, a rear facing chase bar will help increase the safety during your off road expeditions.

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Light Demonstration

Toyota Tacoma KC Hilites Chase Light Bar LED
KC Hilites 28" Chase LED Light Bar
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Summary

A powerful, but compact chase light bar that can be used on any off-road vehicle including trucks and UTV. The installation is very straight forward and only requires basic crimping experience to connect the pigtail wires. The slim design allows you to install it in narrow places without taking up too much space. The LEDs are powered by 4W Cree LED which is further improved by the housing optics from KC and has an output rating of 4,500 lumens. The 40° spread and 180° flood beam patterns make the light very usable during off road trips during the day or night. There are many competitors out there on Amazon with much cheaper chase light bars, however the KC unit is a much better product that would last a lot longer in the weather. The weather resistant enclosure and shatter-proof polycarbonate lens will do much better in the long run.