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A good reminder to keep some warm blankets/coats/gloves/hats in your trunk, along with some non-perishable snacks and a first-aid kit & flashlight. Water is ha
by emptybottle 5y ago
A good reminder to keep some warm blankets/coats/gloves/hats in your trunk, along with some non-perishable snacks and a first-aid kit & flashlight.
Water is harder to store in the winter since it will freeze and burst containers if full, but snow can be melted given a container to put it in.
Also a good to refuel often. I try treat 1/2 a tank as empty and stop accordingly. On longer trips it lines up well with bathroom breaks.
- R0b0t1 5y agoIf I really kept kitted out for an incident like this I use up all my grocery room or most of the back seats. I was in my last car, but because I usually didn't take passengers.
- asdff 5y agoYou could easily fit it all in a milk crate and shove it in the back of your trunk with your spare tools.
- R0b0t1 5y agoI kept it in a crate, but took the leg room of a back passenger.
- kadoban 5y agoIf you optimize for space it's not too bad. Even a thin blanket of the right material is a huge improvement over nothing. That and nest things inside of each other where possible and/or use vacuum seal bags. I've typically been able to jam everything in the least convenient corner of the trunk.
- zepearl 5y agoBtw. I replaced some years ago the blanket with a sleeping bag (warmer + can be folded/compressed better therefore needs less space when stored/hidden in the trunk), and the normal flashlight with another one which is magnetic on one side (for example so that it won't move while mount snow chains).
- throwawayboise 5y agoIf you get one of those vacuum pack bags you can store a blanket or sleeping bag in very little space.
- MikeKusold 5y agoA sleeping bag that is stored compressed loses it's insulation properties: https://www.rei.com/learn/expert-advice/how-to-store-a-sleeping-bag.html https://www.rei.com/learn/expert-advice/how-to-store-a-sleep... I keep a Harbor Freight moving blanket in my trunk. It's thick for insulation, and also cheap in case you need to protect your seats after a muddy activity. I also wouldn't feel torn up about laying it down on ice if I need some traction.
- kylehotchkiss 5y agoAnd if you ever need a new one, it’s like $2
- mulmen 5y agoMagnetic flashlight is nice. If you don't have one I also suggest a headlamp. https://www.rei.com/c/headlamps https://www.rei.com/c/headlamps
- rootusrootus 5y agoMy suggestion for the flashlight is to get one that works as a headlamp. The modern LED versions are quite good, going from incredibly bright all the way down to dim but usable for days.
- btgeekboy 5y agoI keep a few moving blankets in my trunk. Good for protecting my car/items in trips to the store, cheap enough I don't care if they're ruined, and they'll also come in handy if something like this scenario ever happens to me.
- silisili 5y ago+1. My father drilled this into our heads. He's been known to exaggerate, but always told us a story of when he worked for the Highway Dept, below zero weather, and his truck broke down in the middle of nowhere. Claims he would have died if a cop hadn't just happened along at the right time. True or not, when I lived in the midwest, I -always- kept a huge blanket in my vehicle.
- pempem 5y agoNo one kitts their car out like this in DC bc this amt of snow is basically unheard of...?
- alistairSH 5y agoIt's not so much unheard of in DC, more that we don't get enough snow to warrant heavier investment in snow removal - easier to shut down for a day or two. Anybody who sees snow in the forecast and gets on I-95 or any other major highway in the area is insane. This site lists most major winter weather events in the DC region over the past decades... https://www.weather.gov/lwx/winter_DC-Winters https://www.weather.gov/lwx/winter_DC-Winters
- fundad 5y agowe have a new climate
- chiefalchemist 5y agoOne storm is not a trend.
- rbanffy 5y agoI'm almost willing to bet that storms will get progressively worse in the next few years.
- pempem 5y agoI think we all are willing to bet on your side. People will kitt out their cars after this, but having lived in PA, NY and DC I can firmly say that in PA and NY I owned a brush, had water in the car and the like.In DC I legit brushed it off with my gloves. 6" was enough to just not go to work.
- chiefalchemist 5y agoInteresting. The West Coast got a TON of snow in the last couple of weeks and this did not happen. The point is, over-confident and under-prepared humans are not a proxy for the evils of climate change. Let's not get too carried away. Climate change is new and it's real. Human stupidity? Much more established and reliable.
- cure 5y agoGood advice. I also keep a "Portable Car Jump Starter" in the trunk. These days they are basically big batteries (mine is ~3100mAh at 12V apparently) and they come with USB plugs and a built-in flashlight... Handy if you need to recharge your phone in a pinch.
- binaryblitz 5y agoThose are great to have. I will say that 3100mAh is pretty low and wouldn't even fully charge most smartphones. 20kmAh batteries can be purchased for less than $100, and 10k-15k mAh for less than $50. A good idea to have just in case. :)
- Tuna-Fish 5y agoSince you are probably not talking about kilometeramperehours, might want to fix the unit to just Ah.
- nanidin 5y agoBattery packs are usually marketed with their capacity in milliamp-hours. I thought the 15-20k mAh made it pretty clear that we were taking about a 15000-20000 mAh battery pack.
- Tuna-Fish 5y agoThey are, but SI prefixes are always combined, not used together. 15k mAh is just wrong. The correct way to write it is 15Ah.
- nanidin 5y agoI believe the k in “15k” is a suffix and thus not beholden to the rules of SI prefixes. In this case it is used as shorthand for “thousand”, and this usage is prevalent even in countries where SI units are not commonly used. Insisting on changing 15k mAh to 15 Ah is the same as insisting on changing 15000 mAh to 15 Ah - which seems to be a matter of personal preference more than anything.
- carabiner 5y agoSpecific recs: Sleeping bag: https://www.walmart.com/ip/Coleman-0-F-Rectangular-Sleeping-Bag/28966578 https://www.walmart.com/ip/Coleman-0-F-Rectangular-Sleeping-... Warm gloves: https://www.amazon.com/1927KW-L-1-Premium-pigskin-polyester-Heatkeep/dp/B01AT3QP2Y/?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_w=peynZ&pf_rd_p=29505bbf-38bd-47ef-8224-a5dd0cda2bae&pf_rd_r=F9NWJBWHHTDEP1JZ01M5&pd_rd_r=b714b0a5-719a-41b3-974f-82a740a519d5&pd_rd_wg=qc47K&ref_=pd_gw_ci_mcx_mr_hp_atf_m https://www.amazon.com/1927KW-L-1-Premium-pigskin-polyester-... Warm hat: https://www.amazon.com/Minus33-Merino-Wool-Ridge-Beanie/dp/B00B2A4R38/ref=sr_1_6?keywords=Mens+Wool+Beanie&qid=1641332093&sr=8-6 https://www.amazon.com/Minus33-Merino-Wool-Ridge-Beanie/dp/B... Headlamp: https://www.amazon.com/Vont-Flashlight-Batteries-Headlight-Headlamps/dp/B08R66JZKL/ref=sr_1_6?crid=54OAGZ7S69U1&keywords=headlamp&qid=1641332120&sprefix=headlamp%2Caps%2C132&sr=8-6 https://www.amazon.com/Vont-Flashlight-Batteries-Headlight-H...
- bix6 5y agoEmergency (foil) blanket saved my life one night when I was freezing. I carry one more often than not now. Minor space/weight penalty to avoid hypothermia. Camelbak 3L comes with me on all road trips but I’m considering a permanent water tank in my car.
- TedShiller 5y agoHow do foil blankets work actually? Doesn’t metal foil transmit heat very well which would make them a bad blanket to trap heat?
- nerfhammer 5y agoIt's actually mylar that they're made of. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BoPET https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BoPET
- jwagenet 5y agoI believe besides acting as a wind barrier, the foil reflects heat internally. They would not be effective in direct contact with skin and another surface.
- Cerium 5y agoI spent a night in the woods with a Mylar foil blanket. It blocks wind and reflects the heat back to you. When it came loose I would immediately wake up cold and reposition the blanket. The thermal effect was instant on and off.
- dqv 5y agoI know this is gross to talk about, but I'd also add "incontinence blankets" to this list. Specifically for being locked in traffic for this long. There are reusable incontinence blankets you can get. This way you have something designed to catch waste if you misfire.
- Jxl180 5y agoI have these bags made for urine or vomit with a gel in it that will congealed the contents. I was stranded on a closed highway and had to pee so bad. Never again.
- neom 5y agoNever heard of these before, after skimming amazon reviews on a few products, looks like most folks like "Travel John" and "OUMEE" brand the best. Seems useful!
- Jxl180 5y agoYes, Travel John is what’s in my glove box.
- globalise83 5y agoWhy didn't you just take a pee by the side of the road?
- SauciestGNU 5y agoBelieve it or not, in some parts of the USA that can get you labeled a sex offender for life.
- globalise83 5y agoWow, didn't know that! In the UK and most of Europe it's standard practice.
- jcims 5y ago>Also a good to refuel often. I try treat 1/2 a tank as empty and stop accordingly. On longer trips it lines up well with bathroom breaks. This also helps limit the amount of water that can condense on the walls of the gas tank and wind up freezing in the pump or fuel line. It’s possible modern cars have some countermeasures for this because it has been years since I’ve seen it happen, but an additional (potential) benefit.
- obmelvin 5y agoA little extra reason to refuel your car sooner rather than later is that the fuel pump will be stressed more as the tank approaches empty.
- xattt 5y agoWhere is the additional stress from? Lack of weight from fuel above to push it through the fuel lines?
- chiph 5y agoAn in-tank pump is typically cooled by being immersed in the liquid gasoline. When the gas level drops too low the pump gets less cooling.
- throwaway0a5e 5y agoSo you've knocked a couple operating hours off the life of something that tens of thousands of operating hours? Big deal. It'll be fine unless you run it dry for a long period but you won't be doing that because cars don't run the pump when the engine isn't running.
- wiseleo 5y agoI have replaced fuel pumps. This involves a lot of work and often a specialty wrench. You will usually need to drop the fuel tank, which requires at a minimum raising the vehicle over 18" into air. The standard 14" jack/stands solution most motorists own is insufficient. They need to be replaced mostly because their integrated fuel filter gets clogged by the sediment accumulated at bottom of the tank, which causes the motor to fail. When the tank has plenty of fuel, the gunk at the bottom of the tank is less likely to be ingested by the system.
- analog31 5y agoGreetings from Wisconsin. We have one car that we use for trips, the other is just used locally. But even for just going somewhere in town, we have a rule: Make sure you're prepared to walk a mile if necessary.
- bombcar 5y agoKnowing where the nearest Kwik Trip can be a life-saving necessity, if you have to walk from a dead car. Planning winter trips on high-travelled roads (avoid backroads not only because they may not be plowed, but there may be nobody along if you have trouble).
- analog31 5y agoIndeed, as a cyclist, I love the paved county roads that are still in tolerable condition but with virtually zero traffic. But that's certainly not a benefit if you get stuck somewhere out there. Also, the actual location of roads can become uncertain in poor visibility or if the snow is drifting.
- throw_nbvc1234 5y agoHow does this logic work with electric cars; just cut the range in half?
- _moof 5y agoElectric cars are apparently much better in these situations than gas-powered cars, because you can keep the heat on for hours and hours without using up much charge (or creating any CO). Don't personally know if that's true but it's what I've read.
- rootusrootus 5y agoDepends on how the heat is produced and how comfortable you want to make it, but in round numbers I would expect heating the car in a snowstorm to eat up about half the battery capacity every 24 hours. I still keep emergency blankets and I would run the heater as little as possible.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- outworlder 5y agoIt won't use that much charge compared to just driving around - we use so much power moving a multi-ton vehicle at highway speeds it's insane. If you are lucky enough to have a vehicle that has a heat pump and not just a resistive heater and you use it just enough to stave off the cold, you are probably going to be in a very good shape. If you happen to have a vehicle with seat warmers, even better - heating oneself is better than heating the cabin air. ICE also have those, but you'll have to be sure to run the alternator from time to time, generally EVs will figure out when to charge the 12v system from the traction battery. Will an EV like that outlast an ICE car? Based on the figures I'm seeing from a brief search(around 30 hours with a full tank of fuel), I think it's likely, on average. But there are too many variables. You are completely right about the CO emissions. Can leave the heater running without worrying about poisoning.
- blackdeath 5y agoI am getting very much the opposite impression from various recent newsarticles in Sweden, where EVs are common and traffic jams due to snow, accidents etc. are commonplace as well. Google translated a recent P4 article: The snow weather over southern and western Sweden has had a major impact on traffic and people have been sitting in traffic jams for several hours*, reports P4 Gothenburg. A major problem has also been electric cars abandoned on the E6 by their drivers. The battery runs out when there is so much heat in the car. - We will be able to salvage(tow) a lot of electric cars that were on the E6 during the night, says the Swedish Transport Administration's road traffic manager Mikael Salo and believes that this is one of the shortcomings with the new cars.
- intrasight 5y agoIn 1972 when I was about 7 and my younger brother was 6, we were driving to NYC with my parents and got clobbered by a blizzard in Marathon, NY. So many scenes were etched into my mind - including stopping at a gas station where the attendant told us where to go to find shelter. We walked into a gymnasium where there were hundreds of other stranded folk. But to you point, from that day on, my father kept an emergency kit in the trunk. Food, water, cash, space blankets, sweaters, etc. I should do that too.
- rurp 5y ago>Water is harder to store in the winter since it will freeze and burst containers if full Very true. I live in a hot climate and often freeze water bottles to take with me in the summer. A full sealed bottle, even a solid one like a Nalgene, will easily break when frozen. But I've found that leaving 10-15% of space empty and cracking the top ever so slightly prevents any sort of breaks. Leaving the bottle cracked open might not work so well for car storage though, unless it's secured upright.
- arein3 5y agoFill the bottle 75% and crush the plastic bottle a bit before fully sealing it.
- pengaru 5y agoRegardless of how well prepared you are to comfortably hunker down in your vehicle, unless you're truly in no mans land without any reachable alternatives for shelter, it's best to lock up the vehicle with a note on the dash and make your way to a shelter out of harms way. Preferably by way of a route that is not along the road, even if it's more difficult. It's never safe to be arbitrarily stopped on a road, even if you're on the shoulder. Even if you're under the impression no other vehicles will be going fast enough to not see your vehicle or cause an energetic crash. The last thing you want is to be sleeping in your stuck vehicle when a jack-knifed semi takes the roof off. Unless I know I'm going to be in extremely isolated/rural areas, I prefer to be equipped for a hiking excursion more than a prolonged unplanned car-camping scenario. A stuck car on a thoroughfare is a very unsafe place to be, especially in slippery/poor-vis. conditions.
- King-Aaron 5y ago> it's best to lock up the vehicle with a note on the dash and make your way to a shelter out of harms way Just a note for varying geographical locations: If you do this in Australia, you will most likely die from exposure.
- lazyasciiart 5y agoJust a note for locations actually not varying that much and this is generally terrible advice: people die of exposure doing this in the US and everyone ever asked from search and rescue will tell you to stay in your car unless it is actively going underwater or falling off a cliff.
- pengaru 5y agoIt's qualified with unless you're genuinely isolated and there's no reasonably accessible shelter away from traffic. i.e. If you're stuck on the shoulder of a snowy/icy highway and there's a walking distance Motel 6 visible, go straight to the hotel and make your phone calls there. A road is a terrible place to camp, your occupancy has zero influence on the probability of the vehicle getting hit, though it may feel like the right/responsible thing to do - to not abandon your vehicle, it's rarely the safe choice when the stop was unplanned.
- ddingus 5y agoYes. We had a family incident a number of years back. Stuck on a mountain pass in the cold for the better part of a day. We've also seen a breakdown in the desert, and that one was a couple days. We always refuel before entering a risky part of travel. Never count on getting there. Make sure. And in a scenario like this that refuel could provide a days worth of heat, depending. No matter what, it's a lot more heat than driving at reduced capacity would have yielded. Rough metric is you get 1 hour of engine idle per gallon. Some cars do better than that. And you can pulse it, warm vehicle up, make sure everything gets charged, fluids able to flow, etc... and then shut down for 1/2 hour or so in order to stretch the resource. We carry: -2 gallons of water -Car road trouble kit, flairs, compressor, various tools, tape, things... -First Aid -Some food And this is usually our road munchies, pet food, etc... -Weather related stuff
- perl4ever 5y ago>Rough metric is you get 1 hour of engine idle per gallon. Some cars do better than that. I have a non-plug in hybrid, that gets almost 50 mpg consistently; I've got to experiment and extrapolate to see if it's much better. I would like to believe so. I recently learned of the existence of: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline_heater https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline_heater and wonder how efficient they are. These seem to be mostly outdated, but I guess that they are particularly useful with air cooled engines, where a conventional heating system doesn't have coolant to work with.
- ddingus 5y agoIt's gonna be. My normal non / hybrid Honda uses about 1/3 gallon per hour.
- CompuHacker 5y agoA Honda Civic with a D17A1 engine, at idle, with all accessories off, at 700-720RPM, reports 0.6-0.7L/h, or 0.17-0.19 Gal/h over OBD-II. Vent Fan to Full and Mixer to Hot without A/C reports 0.9-1.0L/h, or 0.24-0.26 Gal/h.
- 5y ago
- teakettle42 5y ago> Water is harder to store in the winter since it will freeze and burst containers if full, but snow can be melted given a container to put it in. Emergency drinking water that comes in foil pouches seems to survive freezing; I’m not sure if it’s a requirement of the ISO standard they have to conform to for use on survival craft (I don’t want to pay $250 for the ISO standard just to find out). I keep an emergency supply of these in my car through Colorado winter and summer, without any issues: https://www.datrex.com/product/datrex-emergency-water-ration-2/ https://www.datrex.com/product/datrex-emergency-water-ration...
- gnopgnip 5y agoPlastic water bottles won't burst when frozen. You can get a case of water bottles for under $10.
- teakettle42 5y agoSome will burst or leak, and they leach an unpleasant plastic taste into the water — especially in hot weather.
- cco 5y agoI change them out at the end of each year and use them to water plants. I'm very sure I'll not mind the plastic taste in an emergency situation :)
- teakettle42 5y agoThe datrex drinking water is rated for 5 years, and it tastes the same — like distilled water — 1 or 5 years in. It's nice to actually be want to drink it in a non-emergency situation if you just need some water.
- AshamedCaptain 5y agoDunno why is this downvoted -- put an emergency plastic water bottle in your car during summer season and let me know if you would be able to drink the resulting mush, even in an emergency.
- teeray 5y agoThree more things: 1. Go check the pressure in your spare this week. You’ll thank me later. 2. Put a fire extinguisher in your car. 3. Get some road flares. They’re cheap and keep for a long time. They make you vastly more visible than someone holding up a phone light towards oncoming traffic.
- isatty 5y agoAlso: flashlight and a tarp.
- avnigo 5y agoKeeping some matches handy and lighting a tea candle in the car is surprisingly enough to keep you warm overnight, too.
- Someone 5y ago> Water is harder to store in the winter since it will freeze and burst containers if full In my experience, filling a PET bottle to the brim with tap water and freezing it is fine. The bottle won’t burst, but, I guess, be stretched a bit. Some water will be forced out when you open it, but that’s all. I use this on hot summer days. Freeze water overnight, take it with you, and you’ll still have cool water in the afternoon. Warning: I haven’t tried this in outside temperatures. Those can get a lot lower than you garden variety freezer unit inside a fridge.