As shown by many a youtube video of someone smacking themselves in the head with the tool they with which they were using to try to break the window.
Once winter comes around, I keep a set of maxtrax, blankets, overalls, winter boots, and an heavy jacket in my trunk. I’ve never used them, but there was once an incident where I would have used them had I had them, and not having them caused me to have an extremely miserable time. Is that a flawed risk assessment?
OTOH, I paid several thousand dollars to move a couple sprinkler heads a few feet. Those I don’t think I’ll ever use, and if I did need them, their location probably would have been fine. But it wasn’t up to me.
And speaking of flawed risk assessment - It’s been well over 20 years since I had a flat tire, I think. They just don’t happen anywhere near as often these days as they used to in the past. So, really, why waste time on something that “never happens”?
I think the “flawed risk assessment” here is equating “something that happens rarely” with “something that NEVER happens and therefore no one should EVER prepare for it!”
(Though saying that rape and robbery are “rare” is… weird.)
Funny, I had three in four years on my car, and each time I was glad I had a well-maintained spare tire ready. Also had two on my motorcycle in a 14-year span. For the first one I was able to limp to a cycle shop that happened to be a couple of miles away, but for the second I had equipped myself with a plug kit and a pump and was able to get back on the road in short order.
You can thank the media for that, since the news programs bring you tales of horror from a very wide area. If the local evening news lasted two hours, they’d probably still have no problem finding enough awful true crime tales to fill the whole show.
True, but according to the National Weather Service every year100 of those drownings occur when people drive into flooded roads. I’d say the Venn diagram intersection of people who drive into floods and also have a extrication tool in their glove box is pretty small. People that plan for catastrophes usually don’t go out of their way to cause one.
Where do you live? Making notes on places I should avoid. I assume you were in the military or police when you were shot while wearing body armor?
I live in the land of preppers, both the right-wing type you might immediately think of, along with a certain religious type. Looking at my own panty and small chest freezer, I’m fairly certain my family could survive for many months without a trip to the store, but that isn’t because we’ve decided we need to protect ourselves against some upcoming calamity. We just eat a lot of rice, beans, and other items that have long shelf lives and are very inexpensive to buy in bulk (we also buy local grown animals to fill the freezer).
Also around here, lots of gun carrying. I assume a lot of concealed but it isn’t surprising to see open carrying here as well. It used to be a rare sight and would surprise my wife but now we are just used to it.
Do I think all these folks are nuts for gun carrying and stock-piling food, fuel, ammo, etc? Yes.
I’ve actually been caught out on a flooded road (fortunately, in a manual transmission vehicle so I was able to use the starter motor to pull me out of the deepest part of the water) and it is shocking just how fast a low laying road can go from damp pavement to covered in several feet of water.
Living in coastal North Carolina you get to realize that most people have no idea how little water it takes to float a car enough to lose traction. Your fancy all wheel drive does you no good once the wheels are off the pavement, and it doesn’t take a lot of water to do that. I’ve seen people floating along turning the steering wheel like they’ve suddenly developed a rudder. Mostly they don’t drown doing it, mostly.
A while back (before cell phones) I was at Spider Rock overlook in Canyon de Chelly and a couple had locked themselves out of their upscale rental car. They wanted me to take them back to Chinle to find a lock smith. I opined that numerous folks in Chinle could open their car but I didn’t think any of them were locksmiths and I wasn’t going to drive back to Winslow. Besides there would be considerable risk in leaving the car unattended. Or would the wife stay with the car (not a good idea) or would the wife go on to Window Rock with a stranger? It all involved risk.
I asked why they had locked the car. They were in the middle of nowhere and they only walked 50 feet to look into the canyon. They said they were traveling and everything was in the car.
Their risk assessment was flawed. The probability of petty theft with the car in plain sight was close to zero. The potential impact of being locked out of the car was life threatening. They were shocked when I refused to take them back to Winslow. They had no water or protection, but they did have a solution - break the window. I offered to break it for them, but they refused, sure that someone more reasonable would come along and assist them. Perhaps so, but I did not see another car between there and Window Rock.
Oh yeah, risk management for an unattended vehicle in the desert is: lock anything of value in the trunk, leave the car unlocked and the security unarmed, water in plain sight and money in the change drawer. NPS and BLM taught me that.
I am mildly into prepping and I do try to balance the probability/ severity/ mitigation cost equation, and stay realistic. For example due to age and health issues I’m not going to be very mobile in the event of a crisis, so “bug out” scenarios are mostly off the table at this point. I stockpile a few things I use like toilet paper, drinking water and canned food because the only extra cost was establishing the stockpile to begin with, maintaining it costs effectively zero. I also made a one-time expense of buying some “will last forever” supplies like bulk sugar, salt vinegar and distilled liquor now sitting in my basement against a SHTF situation, and who knows I might use them up at some point. I have a tire inflator for my car that has been very much worth it because my current set of tires tend to slow leak and I get a low pressure indicator every couple of months. Last year I replaced my kitchen fire extinguisher (never used) with a fresh one. Probably the least practical thing I’ve done is buy a backup battery and solar panel charger with a Christmas gift card I got one year. I do get power outages due to summer thunderstorms from time to time so having some reserve juice for things like cell phones and radios is good.
Yes, I didn’t make that clear. They had each intentionally locked their door. They were cautious city folks. But, neither one had asked if the other had the car keys. They were a bit sheepish but really not aware of how serious their situation was.
I assume some Navajo took pity on them and drove them around for the day. Hope he was amply rewarded after their experience with the white guy in the pick up truck.
This was thirty-odd years ago, so yes. But push in the clutch, crank the starter, release the clutch, jerk forward. Repeat until water is not coming through the floorboards.
I’ve already accused myself of being Tobias Funke and needing to record myself, but this time was just one little “r” that I missed. I blame that on my bad typing and multi-tasking skills!
