Priorities--what one packs for a drive in snowy weather

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I recently interviewed for a job in a city that is about two and a half hours away.
It was snowing slightly when I left, so I prepared to be stuck overnight–well, sorta . . .

I took 3 pairs of shoes (sneakers for driving, boots for walking in snow drifts, and dress shoes for the interview), two books (just in case I finished reading one of them) 3 favorite Christmas CDS–plus a rack of CDs I really ought to remove from my car, 2 bottles of sweetened fizzy water, 5 copies of my resume, 2 sets of directions for how to get to the interview, 1 atlas, 1 scarf, 1 pair earmuffs, 1 pair gloves, 1 purse (just large enough for 1 cell phone, 1 wallet, 1 set car keys, and 1 small package of Kleenex).

What I didn’t take and later wished I had–toiletries, and a change of clothes–even just a change of underwear.

I seriously considered spending the night somewhere along the way–possibly even without actually doing the interview. Lack of clothes and toiletries wouldn’t have stopped me, but the weather was starting to improve when I finally had the opportunity to get off the highway. So I said a quick, quiet, eyes-open prayer and kept going. (It would have driven me bonkers to be less than 20 miles from the interview site and unable to get there. On the other hand, as I told my mother, the worst part of the evening was not in fact the interview. It was the feeling one gets when sitting next to the highway waiting for a break in traffic. Next to and almost perpendicular from the perspective of the MEDIAN. Shortly after I spotted the No U-turns sign, a nice (but terribly young) highway patrolman or equivalent stopped by me. We each rolled down our windows, and I explained that I was fine, my car was fine, I just wasn’t on the road at the moment. And, to the best of my knowledge, the same could be said for the car behind me–except that I had only myself to blame for failing to see the edge of the roadway, and the driver behind me had presumably followed my taillights off the edge of the road. It could have been a lot worse. I could have driven off the edge of the road someplace a lot less level and been unable to get myself back onto the road. Or I could have hit something. I didn’t.

Fortunately, when the time came to leave the interview, the worst of the roads were the city streets. Once I hit the highway, things were clear and dry. Kind of freaky though–at 5 or 6 pm, the snow was so heavy that I was going 20mph or less on a 65 mph highway–and still couldn’t see well enough to stay on the road (I drove as fast as I did because I’m paranoid of getting hit from behind.) But the highway advisory radio never acknowledged any snow that far east. And 3 or 4 hours later, the roads were as clear as if it hadn’t snowed in a week.

2

I keep boots and socks, snow shovel, powerful flashlight and bright orange Thinsulate gloves in the trunk for winter. (Of course they sit there all year 'round.) I haven’t had to use them yet but I will be happy to have them at some point.

“Sweetened fizzy water”! My stand-by.

3

According to what they’ve been saying on the news up here, you should add a candle (for heat) and high-energy bars (I’ve seen granola bars suggested) to your list.

4

mrAru brought me a surplus screaming international distress arctic survival suit [aka the pumpkin suit] along with the hat gloves and moon boots. I can curl up in a snow bank in relative comfort.

I also add a small dome tent, some survival gear and half a case of the triple lie [meal, ready to eat]

5

Emergency Blanket. Made of aluminum and the size of a wallet. Fits in your glovebox easy.

6

One thing that’s good to have in general is a wire coat hanger (or maybe bailing wire or something), which you can use to secure the muffler or maybe other things if they fall down. I’ve kept one in my spare-tire well ever since the time my exhaust fell down in the back.

7

Note: while there are no granola bars in my car, there was a package of Special Dark Hersey’s Kissables in my car on the day I almost got stuck in a snow bank.
I do have a blanket that lives in my car, and a sleeping bag which is in there just because I haven’t taken it out. No candle. No coat hanger.

If my muffler needs baling wire to stay on, I’ll be pissed. I just paid $831.69 to make my car safer to drive, which included paying for a new thingie to hold the muffler in place. (The old one was cracked, rusted, and in danger of falling off if touched. Or so the technician reported.)

Actually, it was kind of funny–but mostly mundane and pointless, I called the dealership to schedule an oil change–sometime in the next two weeks–and was encouraged to take it in today.

I ended up getting the muffler strap thingie, the 30,000 mile tune-up, and 4 new tires. Which kind of pissed me off. Although, I did know that at least one of my tires was leaking slowly. And I think at least one had about 45K miles on it, so it makes sense to replace it. (On the other hand, one tire only had about 13K. Still, might as well start fresh with 4 tires, as opposed to 3 new tires and one with 13 K on it).

So, either I’m a sucker, or I’ve just made my car greatly safer to drive, and much less likely to leave me stuck in a snowbank in two weeks.

Or both.

At least now I shouldn’t have to kneel in any icy puddles while dressed up in order to keep from having to drive around on visibly flat tires for a while.

And Dad won’t lecture me on the evils of flat tires–for a while.

And Mom won’t fret about me not keeping my car maintained.

But, on my budget, that’s a whole bunch of money–even if it is less than a new car would be.

On the silly side of things. Because I had work done, they did a courtesy wash while it was at the dealer. It was cold and snowy today. When I got my car home and inspected it, it had some very interesting patterns where the water had frozen on my car. It’s much cleaner looking, but not entirely consistantly.

And I fear I need to replace the windshield wipers. Which pisses me off, because I just did that 6 months ago (for the first time in 5 years of owning the car). But, they didn’t work great the night I ended up in a ditch, and they worked worse today. So maybe I’ll replace them before I drive a really long time headed to my parents house.

8

I’ll go along with this and suggest Duct tape. For about six months, half of my rear bumper was stuck to the body of the car with clear Duct tape after a rough exit to a parking garage. Finally the Duct tape gave out, and my friend put it back on for me properly.

Still Duct tape’s good for so many things. I’ve still got a roll under my passenger seat. It’s very comforting.
-Lil

9

I managed to get stuck on a fairly remote mountain track. I was heading for a trailhead, so I had food, water, sleeping bag, tent, cooking fuel and stove, etc. etc. Frustrating as hell, but no big emergency. While it might be silly to carry a complete hiking kit, there’s something to be said for an honest to goodness sleeping bag versus a “space blanket”, and a cookstove versus a candle. Oh, eventually somebody in a pickup truck ambled along, w/ chain and pulled my car out.

10

Water, blankets, flares, something to pee in, snacks, something to read.

If you ever get stuck in the snow during a blizzard or in the middle of nowhere, do not get out of the car and try to walk anywhere. Set off a flare and stay where you are. Your chances of dying are much greater if you leave the vehicle.

11

After reading about that poor C-net guy, earlier today I was thinking about how we should keep a sleeping bag and a case of Cliff Bars in the trunk. Scary stuff, and it could happen to almost anyone from his time and place. An average California person trying to take the mapquest shortcut from I-5 to 101 in southern Oregon in the rain wouldn’t expect to, you know, die.

12

As long as you’re not suggesting replace the wire for hanging the exhaust; it’ll likely melt and catch fire if you put it there.

13

I’m in the middle of moving from Spain to Switzerland. This winter I’ll be living in Basel (which is in Switzerland but right at the border to France) and having a half-hour commute to a factory in Germany most days.

So my car got its 60000km checkup, which includes changing a bunch of parts, ayayay my wallet hurts, and all new tires, and I retrieved my snow chains from Lilbro (who borrowed them last Xmas and hadn’t returned them). A blanket that’s very comfortable is now living in my car, under the seat with the emergency triangles and vest. I’m told that in Germany you have to get “winter tires” and “summer tires”, but if I run into a cop who doesn’t like my new tires I’ll just forget what little German I speak :stuck_out_tongue: My box of spare plugs is full, I have chocolate in little packages as well as the kind of cookies that can keep forever without going stale unless they get wet and, since this is the kind of area where the next village is 10km away tops, very little expectation of having to spend a cold night on the road’s shoulder.

And for Christmas I’m getting me a GPS. Which isn’t necessarily good for the snow, but it’s helpful if you have to call 112 and tell them where the heck you are, specially with all these German names…

14

well, being a hot blooded farmboy canadian tempered in the brittle cold of the rockies, I’m proud to say I’ve got a spare jacket, gloves and skates in my trunk :slight_smile:

15

[QUOTE=Nava]
…My box of spare plugs is full…QUOTE]

Huh? What kind of plugs?

16

Sparkplugs and other little things like lightbulbs, for the car. I believe it’s a leftover from Way Back When, since nowadays nobody will fix a car with anything more complicated than a flat in the Middle Of Nowhere.

Still required to carry them, so I do have them. I’m all legal and stuff (yes, Herr Polizei-herren, these tires are winter tires, the Toyota official garage said so).

17

At the very least I think you should have a gallon of water, some kind of food and extra clothes or an old blanket. Even if you always travel busy highways, you never know when you might get stuck for hours, or overnight. Keeping the fuel above half is also a good idea, especially if you’re on a road trip.

18

I grew up in Montana. We were taught to always take or wear a good winter coat, gloves, and boots. In the trunk: Everything you need to change a tire, chains, sleeping bag, a crowbar, a couple bags of sand, a couple gallons of water, a first aid kit, and waterproof matches.

As teenagers we were not allowed to drive until we demonstrated we could change a tire on the 4-wheel-drive (which would now be known as an SUV); put it in 4WD and take it back out (which involved locking and unlocking the hubs on the wheels); and put the chains on it. We were also taught quite a lot more about bad weather driving in Drivers’ Ed than it seemed like other kids were taught. We learned how to deal with a skid, why it’s a very bad idea to use cruise control on bad roads, and why you should never, ever go off a main road onto an unknown road between, say, early October and May, no matter what the weather looks like at the moment. Even now that I’m in the South I still keep the same stuff in the trunk, except for the chains.

19

And something to melt the water with?

Tomorrow my baby gets his winter tires put on, his inspection done, and his 120K check-up. He will be all set for winter, which unfortunately chose to start yesterday!

20

What with the recent “got stranded” story and all the subsequent pieces on emergency preparedness, I got to wondering: why doesn’t anyone mention Sterno? Keep a couple small cans in the trunk, along with some matches, and you’ve got a few hours worth of high heat for melting and cooking. They should last indefinitely as long as they’re sealed.