What should I have in my car for emergency situations? Currently, I have a swiss army knife in the glove compartment, a small first aid kit in the armrest compartment and a rollup camping blanket in the trunk. The blanket is unlikely to ever be needed since I’m living in South Florida.
Maybe I should put a secure container of water in there.
Fire extinguisher, especially for auto fires.
Bottled water.
Those orange traffic triangles.
I’d rethink needing the blanket, as it can be used for things other than keeping warm. (padding, shelter from the sun, absorbing fluid, etc.)
Buy replacement bulbs for your headlights/tail lights and the tools necessary to change them and keep them in your car. Also, keep a ready supply of fuses of the size you need for your car. These two things have come in more handy for me than anything else I keep in my car. I’m gonna have to second the fire extinguisher as well, not only for your car, but for any other small fire you might drive upon that need put out. You can also keep a very small (read travel size) bottle of dish soap and one of the tire plug kits in case your in the middle of nowhere, get a nail in your tire, and your spare’s flat. Soap for finding hole, kit for fixing till you get to a gas station.
In my trunk I have:
In winter I carry:
I’ve used everything except the first aid kit and the foil blanket.
What I should carry, but haven’t got around to:
Is it safe to keep an extiguisher in a car that sits out in the Florida Sun? Granted, most days it’s in a parking garage, but not always.
And **Really…, ** I’m nowhere near Orlando. No chance of zombies down here.
I’ve got a big-ass flashlight (3 million candlepower hee hee). I feel ready for anything.
I’m sure I’m not.
Water only if you’re the type to check on it and replace it periodically.
The blanket is good even in south Florida. If you get wet and/or the temp drops a bit, you’ll be glad you had it. Heck, even if you weren’t wet, if the temp dropped to 60 degrees or less and you had to spend a couple of hours in the car, you’d be damned glad you had it.
Rain poncho - even an extremely cheap plastic thing. If you gotta walk and it’s a torrential rain out, you’ll be very glad you have it.
Flashlight - get a newer LED one. Lasts a lot longer.
A granola bar or two. Won’t be as affected by the heat and should still last a while. Check and replace when you check the water.
But Chuck Norris operates in close quarters, so eventually, you’re going to be faced with A CHUCK NORRIS ZOMBIE!!! :eek:
If you don’t have a filter wrench with you, leave the filter home, you will never get the old one off.
As for me:
[ul]
[li]A damn good first aid kit. Not trauma level, but way, way above basic.[/li][li]A spare tire with air in it. (When was the last time you checked the air pressure in your spare? A flat spare rates right up there with a birdcage of bullshit on the useless scale)[/li][li]A tire pressure gauge[/li][li]Pen/pencil & paper[/li][li]Cell phone charger[/li][li]Jumper cables / jump box[/li][li]Jack and tire tools (Do you know how to use the jack on your car?)[/li][li]A square piece of plywood about 18" square. Used if you have to jack up the car on soft earth. Place under jack.[/li][li]Warning triangles / flares[/li][li]Bottle of drinking water.[/li][li]Flashlight[/li][li]Screwdriver/torx driver/ couple of small wrenches[/li][/ul]
Absolutely water. Sealed 1-gallon bottles of distilled water are cheap, keep forever, and you can either drink it or use it in the radiator.
Keep the blanket.
A roll of duct tape. Don’t leave home without it. I also carry a roll of electrical tape just in case I need to fix a hole in a radiator hose.
A can of “leak-stop” tire inflator.
Fire extinguisher.
A couple of sealed granola bars. Replace them often.
Rope. I carry a 20’ heavy-duty tow rope and a 50’ lightweight rope.
Flashlight - with good batteries. Maybe even an extra set.
Several emergency flares and reflectors.
At camping supply stores, you can get a raincoat that stuffs into a small pouch. It’s more than just an emergency kit item. It can come in handy any time you get caught in the rain–as long as it’s in the passenger compartment.
A ziplock bag with some rubber bands, plastic zip ties, a cable clamp or two, a bit of string, a bit of wire, some paper clips, a disposable lighter, and various other little stuff.
A few miscellaneous tools, including a knife, a screwdriver (the kind with interchangeable tips, so you can have phillips, flat-blade, Robinson square drive and such with one driver), a small pair of pliers, and so forth.
In that case your emergency kit should also include the manual “Zombie Training for Dummies” and several packages of Zombie Treats.
Once you have the Chuck Norris Zombie trained to respond to your every command, you won’t have any problems with the rest of the world.
Wheel chock or length of 4x4 or 6x6. It doesn’t take much incline for Mr. Vehicle to try to fall off Mr. Jack, which is a real PITA.
If your spare is mounted outside or underneath, and there’s a lock on it, exercise the lock and lube it now and then. I once had to walk off the interstate to a Sears, buy a pair of boltcutters and return to get the &%#*! spare off the underside of a S-10 before changing the &%#*! flat tire. Put the boltcutters on my expense account, too. 
If the valve stem of your underneath spare isn’t accessible, fix it now. That way it won’t be a huge PITA to check spare pressure, too.
I’d recommend a few military MRE’s. Tasty and they’ll keep.