One of the most essential pieces of kit to have in your cabin is a solid flashlight. Whether it’s just to help you navigate to the john at night, or to save your life in a dangerous scenario, it’s worth having one (or more) in your basic trucking kit.
But with so many options and so much marketing out there surrounding flashlights, if can be difficult to work out what you actually need. We’re cutting through the fog to help you decide exactly what you need out of this small, but essential, piece of gear.
Decide What You Need from the Flashlight
The first thing you need to decide is exactly what you need this flashlight to do. Flashlights obviously all shine light, but they can do so in different ways and are designed for different purposes. Let’s cover the three main types of flashlights that will be useful for truckers.
Beam Flashlights Are Good for Spotting
Beam flashlights are exactly what they sound like. These are what pop into your head when you hear flashlight: they shoot light out in a single direction as a focused beam.
Beam flashlights are best suited for:
- Navigation when outside of your cab, such as finding the toilet at a dilapidated rest stop.
- Sign spotting in poor conditions so long as you have enough power. Since it shoots a beam of focused light, a powerful beam light can make upcoming road signs pop from much further away and in much more adverse conditions than your truck’s lights.
- General purpose use. If you don’t have any flashlights, go with a beam flashlight first.
Our top choice for a beam flashlight is the Streamlight 66320 because it provides plenty of light in small, easy to use and carry package that can fit anywhere in your cab. Or, even better, on your person.
Flood Flashlights Are Essential for Doing Any Work at Night
The next contender for a good cabin flashlight are “flood” style flashlights, often also called bank lights or work lights. Instead of sending out a tight focused beam, they are designed with a large panel of lights meant to flood an entire area with enough light to work.
Flood flashlights are best for:
- Working or making repairs, both on the interior and exterior of the truck
- As a campsite light, since they provide enough light to safely navigate an entire area
Flood flashlights aren’t as general-purpose as beam lights, but for truckers they can often provide more utility due to how often we could use a lot of light, everywhere. If you don’t have a portable floodlight, it’s more than a worthy addition to your kit.
Our top choice for flood flashlights is the Cat CT1000. It’s cheap, compact, provides plenty of light, and has a decent battery life.
If you want a rechargeable solution, then we recommend purchasing a more powerful floodlight that might already take rechargeable batteries from other tools you own, such as this Dewalt 20V MAX light.
Convertible Flashlights Make a Compromise
If you can either only afford one light, or only want to carry one light, then there is thankfully a solution.
Lights like this Stanley SAT3S provide a happy medium between the two types. These hybrid versions won’t do either task at maximum possible performance, but they still provide plenty of light and utility. Almost everyone can get away with only owning one of these types.
How Many Lumens Should a Trucker’s Flashlight Be?
This is a common question. Almost all the buzz marketing these days surround flashlights has to do with lumens—but it’s not actually that great a measurement of a flashlight’s capability since it depends on so many things. That being said, since all the flashlights now list their power in lumens, we will too for the purposes of this guide.
Flashlights of at least 300 lumens or more are best suited for trucking purposes if you can only choose one flashlight. Lower powered flashlights may not provide enough light to make emergency repairs, while flashlights over 800 lumens are overkill for most truckers’ needs.
For reference:
- 100 lumens is your standard home flashlight
- 500 lumens is a standard workhorse for indoor/outdoor jobs
- 1000+ lumens are typically reserved for self-defense or other niche applications
So long as you grab a good, durable flashlight that is 300 lumens or so, it will do the job. If you are looking for a flood flashlight, go up by another couple hundred lumens since their light is much less focused.
It’s Just a Flashlight: Buy Within your Budget
To close out, it’s also important to note that a flashlight is just that: a flashlight. While it’s an important safety tool and it’s worth buying from a brand with good quality control, it’s also not an incredibly complex device. If there is a cheaper quality flashlight that provides what you need, you don’t need to break the bank to get all the bells and whistles.
When choosing a light for your cab, just keep in mind that you are buying something that just makes light. There are lots of ways different companies can accomplish that, so it may just come down to your own personal preference!
Whatever your choice, we hope we’ve been able to help you make an informed decision.