(1808 posts)
Sep 28, 2009 11:16 am
Preparedness - The car
Oh, best intentions. I had planned to post a bit of stuff related to September being National Preparedness Month. This website gives you a place to start. Whether it be from a natural disaster (hurricane, tornado, flood, ice storm, etc.) or an accident (slipping off the road in icy conditions), most of us are woefully unprepared. It's a pretty simple fact.At the Oklahoma Wildlife Expo, I sat in on a seminar for about an hour listening to Peter Kummerfeldt, owner of Outdoor Safe Inc.. His focus was on short-term survival, say three days or so. He said, "Most of us dress to arrive, but not to survive." He went on to tell a story of a woman who commuted 23 miles each day in Alaska, and slid off the road. She was wearing a miniskirt and knee-high boots. He stated her knees, which were totally unprotected, were the worst case of frostbite he had ever personally witnessed.
I'd say the vast majority of us own a car and use it daily. And I suspect most of us don't check things as often as we should, if ever. For example, I suspect the majority of folks here have a spare tire for their car, yet nobody checks the spare to verify its condition.
Here are a few things to think about:
Bi-Weekly
- Check air in tires[/*:m:1vdrhhmt]
- Check oil level[/*:m:1vdrhhmt]
- Check coolant level[/*:m:1vdrhhmt]
- Check battery terminal connections for corrosion[/*:m:1vdrhhmt]
- Check all lights -- headlights, brake lights, turn signals, tag light[/*:m:1vdrhhmt]
- Windshield washer fluid. As we head toward winter, make sure you have winter-rated fluid that won't freeze.[/*:m:1vdrhhmt]
- Check your wiper blades.[/*:m:1vdrhhmt]
Tools
- Spare Tire[/*:m:1vdrhhmt]
- All tools to change tire -- jack, lug wrench, security tool for locking lugnuts if applicable[/*:m:1vdrhhmt]
- Jumper Cables[/*:m:1vdrhhmt]
- Flashlight with good batteries! Change these every time you change the batteries in your smoke detector at home. The easy thing to do is change batteries when you change your clocks for daylight savings time.[/*:m:1vdrhhmt]
- Spare fuses[/*:m:1vdrhhmt]
Kit
- Umbrella[/*:m:1vdrhhmt]
- Poncho or large, lawn-size trash bag. Nobody likes to change a flat tire, and you'd like to do it in the rain even less.[/*:m:1vdrhhmt]
- For winter conditions, a blanket, mylar space blanket, sleeping bag or some combination thereof. It's a much smarter idea to stay with your vehicle in some instances than to try to find help, especially if you aren't dressed properly. The car provides safety from the elements (precipitation, wind), as well as some margin of insulation.[/*:m:1vdrhhmt]
- A few energy bars. You never know how long you might be stuck.[/*:m:1vdrhhmt]
- Small first aid kit. You don't need a portable Emergency Room, but a few essentials would be a good idea.[/*:m:1vdrhhmt]
- Make sure your cell phone is fully charged before leaving home. A car charger might be very useful as well.[/*:m:1vdrhhmt]
- A whistle. It sounds like a simple and useless device. But, if you were hoarse from screaming (or from a cold), it provides an easy means of signalling and attracting attention.[/*:m:1vdrhhmt]