For first aid, I also put in Tyvek jumpsuits in case of extensive blood exposure.

The most crucial and useful emergency equipment that I almost always carry is a little air compressor that operates off the car battery. For some reason, we didn’t have it when the car blew a tire and the donut spare was low. We lucked out that time, and I put a new one in the car immediately.

Umbrellas come in handy, too.

We got to drive in last Friday’s snowstorm here in the southeastern U.S. on our way to the mountains.

We left at noon, but found the snow was already sticking to the road (ALL forecasters said it would not stick to the roads until after dark)

I saw plenty of cars stuck on hills, the poor people trying to push their car up the grade.

A set of chains for their front (drive) wheels would likely have gotten them up those hills.

A ground cover of some kind and a knee-pad are useful for changing a tire if, like me, you wear business clothes for most of your driving and don’t enjoy kneeling on gravel.

I agree that water is a car-travel essential and shouldn’t explode if you leave enough air space.

@36 Tyler – The chances that I’ll be in an accident that would engage my seat-belt are also minute, but I still wear it every time I drive and did long before it was a legal requirement. Some precautions carry such a trivial cost for the protection they afford that even if the chance they will be needed is small, they are worth doing.

Years ago, it took an hour or so for me to gather together the things I carry and put them in the car. (My emergency kit is much more elaborate than Trent’s, but still fits in a backpack and a space bag.) Once a year, I check my bag and refresh the batteries, medications, food and water.

I’ve never been stranded by extreme weather, but if I am, I won’t be tempted to do the most dangerous thing, which is to leave my car and set off on foot on a treacherous road or in unknown terrain. Such mistakes kill several people every year. I’ve also had on hand everything I needed to be reasonably comfortable on a couple of occasions when I had to sleep in my car during road trips.

It is STILL a good idea to keep emergency supplies in your car, but you do need to use a little common sense when doing so. I won’t need blankets that often (I have a space blanket in the trunk) nor will I need sand, but most of the rest is practical. How much does your kit weigh, and does it increase gasoline usage?

I will say that I haven’t seen a wind-up radio since I was a kid (mid-1960s). We don’t have spare cell phones, but when my wife and I travel we both carry ours. We do keep cereal bars and water, and both cars have small tool kits. Total weight for the whole shebang is under ten pounds, so I’m not cutting down a whole lot on mileage. this all fits in the spare tire well in the trunk.

As far as I can tell, I’m the only one who said anything about breaking in somewhere, and I don’t think a reasonable reading of my comment would lead anyone to assume that a place to break in would be available. I was just listing some things you might need to break into.

As for the uselessness of an unheated shack – consider the possibility that your wrecked car may no longer be suitable shelter given the weather conditions. It could be upside-down in a wet ditch, leaving you no dry place on which to sit or lie down, or you may not be able to spare sufficient blankets to cover up the holes where its windows used to be, leaving you and your passengers exposed to the cold, snow, or freezing rain.

I would be interested to know how many times either of you have ever been in a situation where you’ve been stranded. From the comments you’ve made, it certainly seems neither of you have dealt with large amounts of snowfall while traveling.

If you disagree with Trent (or me, for that matter)that’s fine, but you can do that without being rude.

Your cell phone is charged and able to get a signal.
People will be around to stop to help you, even if it puts them in danger and even if it’s only one car an hour traveling the road you’re on.
Your can actually see somewhere to walk to, you can actually walk there, and you can either break in or someone will let you in.
You, and those relying on you, aren’t going to be out and about in the bad weather to begin with.
Your car will still work and provide you with heat (or AC in the desert).

If you live in areas where this is a given and never go beyond, fine, feel free to rely on this because in many ways, it would take multiple failures for it to become more than an inconvienance. If you’re going beyond, I’d recommend considering where your going and planning on the situation. Most of the critical items don’t take a lot of weight or room in a trunk, and can be useful in plenty of situations. From my experience I’ve been caught for hours on a snowbound freeway, lots of folks, all in the same boat. I’ve been alone in a parking lot in an industrial park where all the buildings are locked, car won’t start, and the tow trucks will get to me, in a few hours, because they’re out on other calls. I’ve been caught by a “bump” of ice I slid over and I just couldn’t get my car to rock back over, a little sand or cat litter and/or someone to help push would have easily fixed it, had any been available.

In these cases, my cell phone would be useless or helped a bit. How fast is a friend going to get to you in bad weather? Do you want them to get stuck too? The cops and fire department and tow trucks are busy, they’ll get to you if they can when they can. Even a reasonable snowfall can cut visibility to under a quarter mile, and just because you see a light in the dark doen’t mean you can crawl through the twenty foot ditch between you and it, or that it won’t turn out to be an unheated utility shed for the power company.

You don’t have to go far to run into problems. They may not become life threatening, but spending a night, or even a few hours in the cold, waiting or hoping for help, can be eased with just a little forthought.

While I acknowledge that a car wreck does not necessarily mean the same level of winter danger, many people lost in the wilderness have died because they tried to survive off of eating snow. The amount of energy required to melt snow into ice is tremendous and you waste energy and body warmth doing so.

It’s a much better idea to keep a jug of water in your car at all times. As long as the jug is not glass and there is enough of a gap to allow for expansion it won’t explode. Assuming your car was on at the time of the crash, the jug probably won’t be entirely frozen when you need it.

If planning for a long trip where there is a potential for winter storms it’s a good idea to make sure that you have a water supply with you that is not at the time of your departure frozen (as a jug might be if you keep it in your car all the time).

I had a comment from Dec 14th that is still waiting for moderation as well. (That is, when I visit your post about the book ‘Influence’, I see that it is still awaiting moderation) I just assumed you decided you didn’t want the comment to appear, but perhaps there’s a problem with your software?

@Tyler,

“Unless you can lift the car off the ground, you can’t put it under the wheel.”

Are you kidding? No, really, are you? To say something like that leads me to believe that not only have you never been stuck before (maybe you have and just called a tow company), but you’ve probably never helped anyone get un-stuck either. Either way, I couldn’t help but laugh a little at such a silly thing to write.

“Doesn’t sound like the greatest tradeoff considering how often you need to stop versus how often you get stuck.”

Actually it is, assuming you adjust your driving to the conditions.

You mention keeping a charged cel phone, a battery powered flashlight, and extra batteries – I just don’t see how all of these would not be dead by the time you needed them, if it had already been cold enough to be in the situation you are preparing for.

I’d be more likely to say make sure you have a charger for your main celphone that works in your car, so you can use your main cel phone in such a case. This would work for more than just 911 that way, and work anytime you forgot to charge your cel phone overnight, or talked more than you thought that day. Seems like a much more efficient backup.

If you have the room, keeping an extra old deactivated celphone in the car would be an ok idea, but again I would more likely say make sure it has a car charger as well, as opposed to being disappointed in your spare phone’s battery being discharged when you really need it.

I did get stuck one time in an abrupt ice storm that lasted about 2 hours, was unexpected, and basically caught everyone in town “out-and-about” on a normal Monday night, and shut down all traffic in Nashville overnight. There were cars abandoned everywhere the next morning, and people were either stranded in their cars for hours, or abandoned their cars to walk to shelter. I was 30 miles from my house, and luckily I was able to make it to about a mile away from a friend’s apartment, but it made me realize my grandmother was right to tell me to always keep a blanket in the car just in case. I’d always neglected to do that, and often even didn’t take a heavy coat in winter, because I “knew” I’d just be running in and out.

I always keep a small ice scraper in the crack between my car seat and the floor when you open the drivers door…it’s out of the way all year round, yet there when I need it – the first frost always happens before I’m prepared, so the scraper is just there.

Another more practical tip is to always make sure your gas tank doesn’t get below a quarter of a tank, especially in any sort of inclement weather- but really a good tip (that I used to disregard) at any time.

After re-reading the post, I think this post (and the comments) are getting confused between stocking up a few emergency items for a specific trip during winter (along roads you may not be used to), and typical items to keep in your car all winter, just in case. The title of the post assumes all winter, but the post itself sounds like you mean a specific trip.

Weight in the bed is effective to give traction to the wheels till you get into the ditch.

Once in the ditch, the sand/cat litter is much more useful for traction. It is very common and useful to have additional people bouncing on bumper in time with the pushing.

Where I grew up in central Illinois it rains a lot in the Spring/Summer so the roads are domed to shed water, in the winter with a coating of 2″ of ice, they get slip. If you don’t know how to drive you will go into the ditch.

There are people that make a living out of polling people out of the ditches with 4×4 and winches.

Yes, 100′s. I’m sorry if that doesn’t match the reality you grew up in. I remember one day when they closed the roads and decided to keep the kids in school unless the parents could make it to the school and get them. My dad made it and got me, we, stopped and pulled out 19 vehicles that one day alone.

And cat litter is much safer than rock salt or chains.

Since then I’ve moved to the North West, tire chains work marvels!!