Thanksgiving is next week, and that means we’re almost to the busiest day of travel in the US: the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. According USA Today, 90% of Thanksgiving travel will be by car. That means that you, dear reader, will likely be on the road that day, along with a very large portion of your fellow Americans. That means traffic, and traffic means a higher risk of car accidents. Add into that mix the fact that it’s late November, and that’s a recipe for trouble.
I can’t help you when it comes to dealing with the other drivers, but I can give some suggestions for a kit to keep in your car. If you’re looking for a more substantial list of things to keep for your house, I have a whole series I’m doing on that.
Scenario
As Pat Rogers is famous for saying “Mission drives the gear train”, so in order to talk intelligently about what gear we should consider, we have to know what we need such gear for. I’m not personally worried about an EMP, massive civil unrest, or a meteor strike while I’m on the road.
I’m considering a scene where I alone, or with my wife and kids, are stranded on the side of the highway. It’s cold (because it’s winter), and our car is no longer a viable means of transportation. We need to stay alive until help comes, I’m planning on an overnight stay at worst. I’m not planning on a comfortable, long term duration. I’m just trying to keep us all alive and warm while waiting for a tow truck.
To this end I’ve kept a bag riding around the cargo area of my car since my first child was a couple months old. It was thrown together hastily with what I had available at the time and is in need of a good re-think and overhaul.
Things to Keep for You
Water I have about a half gallon’s worth of water. It’s not a lot, but assuming that a person can survive without water for about 3 days, it should be enough to keep two adults and a couple of kids alive for 12 hours.
Shelter I plan on using the car itself, if possible. In the even that it has crashed or is on fire, or otherwise unusable as shelter, I have been keeping my make-shift tarp shelter kit in my car [link to forum post about it].
Clothing This is a category I don’t consider in my main series, because it’s concerned with holing up in my house. I keep all my clothes inside my house. My car, on the other hand, isn’t a rolling wardrobe, and this needs to be taken into account. Currently I keep a thick hoodie, a rain poncho, a baseball hat, a pair of leather glove, and a pair of rubber muck boots in the back. Other than the boots (which are for work more than anything else), I only have upper-body gear. I need to get a pair of thermal underwear/long johns, maybe some sweat pants, and definitely a pair of thick socks. I don’t want to get caught in the cold wearing gym shorts. A blanket could be kept as a way to augment whatever you happen to be wearing at the time, but a blanket takes up a ton of room. I also need to pack some stuff for my kids, as there clothing needs currently aren’t being addressed either.
Healting/Cooling Since it’s winter, I’m going to focus on the issue of heating. I really don’t have a way to heat the interior of the vehicle, though if there are 4 of us inside of it (if we don’t have our two dogs with us), then our body heat will more than likely be enough. If it’s just me, I’ll put on whatevr coat I brought with me, along with the sweatshirt I keep in my car, and just curl up. Not ideal, but I’ll consider the extra calorie expenditure part of my weight loss plan 😅 As to heating the tarp shelter in the event I need to use it, I don’t have a good solution. This is an issue that I need to get sorted out.
Food I have some canned food stashed in my car bag, but not a lot. It’s only 1300 calories. Since I’m not planning for any long periods of time it’s not a pressing concern, but if my overnight stay turns into a full day, it would become one very quickly. The canned food I have is already heavy and takes up a lot of room, so I probably need to look into something a lot more calorie-dense.
Baby Food I keep a tin of baby formula with the canned car food. I tossed it in the bag when my oldest was bottle fed and I’m going to keep it for now. Even though my youngest isn’t formula fed, it could prove useful in an otherwise fatal situation.
Dog Food When I travel with my dogs anywhere, I always pack food for them, so I’m not worried about keeping some on-hand at all times in my ride.
Ammo If I’m bringing a rifle with me, I usually pack one or two extra mags (because I usually plan on shooting it). If just the EDC gun, I like to keep a reload with me. With my wheel gun that means I’ve only got 12 rounds total. I need to be sure I bring both speedloaders full when I set off for a trip of any significant distance.
Emergency Money In Cash I like to keep $100 in cash on me at all times. If I need to buy something at 11pm at night, I want the knowledge that I can do so. Keeping a little bit of cash on hand for emergencies just makes me feel better.
Battery Back-Ups for Electronics I don’t know why, but I’ve never considered keeping one of these in my car until just now. When would my phone be more necessary than when I’m stranded on the side of the road? I need to buy another pair of these things and leave them in my car!
Medical Did your car come with a first aid kit? Mine did, and I still have it in there. It’s not a trauma kit, but it has Tylenol, band-aids, Benadryl, and other first aid-y stuff.
Fire Extinguishers After I get my house’s fire extinguishers, I’ll grab one for my car as well.
Storage How am I going to organize all those stuff? well, right now I have it in a Jansport backpack I had lying around. I wasn’t kidding when I said that I threw this kit together one day! That bag is pretty full already and I want to double the volume of supplies. I’m going to have to find a new bag to carry the stuff in. That, or get another one of a similar size. I’d rather have a single, bigger bag so that I’m not trying to wrangle two separate ones wherever I go.
Another option for storage would be to install a drawer system in the back of my car. It could hold all the stuff I want and leave my cargo area unaffected, minus the loss of some maximum height capacity. My car isn’t very popular with the crowd this type of accessory is targeted to, so it would be a custom built solution. This is non-ideal, due to the afirementioned pair of very young children in my home. Spending the amount of time required is unreasonable for me at this stage of life. The drawer solution also prevents me from being ale to grab the kit and walk off, if I needed to abandon my immobile vehicle for any reason.
Things to Keep for Your Car
The best solution to any problem is to not have it in the first place, right? If you can keep your car mobile, then you won’t have to worry about staying warm in it in the first place.
Jumper cables If you drive a car, you should have jumper cables in it. Period. I have kept a set in my ride since before I had a driver’s license. The cables have helped me out of a handful of jams, and I in turn have helped out twice as many people who needed a jump. Just grab a set, at least 6 foot in length. They aren’t expensive and you will use them.
Tire Inflators I have one of these in my wife’s car. It runs off the cigarette lighter, it cost $20. and it has lasted us about six months so far. It inflates her tire from near-zero psi to 35 in 12-15 minutes. A battery powered one would be more flexible in theory, but in practice I don’t know how much extra use the battery gives you.
Extra Gasoline Having 30-50 extra miles of range to get us to the next gas station isn’t a bad thing. In my overnight scenario, if the night is exceptionally cold, and the car still turns on, then idling the engine can keep my family and I warm longer. I don’t know exactly how much gas my car uses while idling, but I have to imagine that 2 or 3 gallons of gas will extend that period of time substantially. Having extra fuel on-board is really a no-brainer.
Battery Starter This is an item that I have only recently been turned onto. I think they are fascinating little devices, and I really want to get one for both my vehicle & my wife’s.
Dash Cam I got mine off of Amazon. Every year the under-$100 options get better and better. For how affordable they have become and the amount of money, headache, insurance hassle. and potential legal liability this simple little device can save you, they are a bargain!
Conclusion
Most people just assume that everything will always go right, and the one time something goes wrong they are caught completely off guard and unable to handle it. I’m not saying that you should have all of this stuff before you commute to work in the morning, else you’re GOING TO DIE! I’m not even saying that you have to have everything here before you take a trip out of town. Shoot, I’ve got maybe a third of this list in my own vehicle.
The purpose of this piece is to get you thinking about what you’ve got in your own ride, what problems you are likely to face, and what are some ways you can start to mitigate the danger of things going wrong. My list is very specific to me and my family, and where we live and the kind of travelling we do. Any sort of list should be very specific to you and your specific situation, though I imagine that most people would come to something similar to my list.
I’m also advising against trying to buy all this stuff all at once. Maybe just consider picking up an item or two the next time you go to your local Target or Wal Mart. Over the course of a few months you’ll amass a large majority of the things I’ve listed above.
One final thing: Make sure you carry the knowledge of how to use the items you carry! Carrying around a tire inflator that you can’t operate is just wasting your trunk space. Sure, you could learn to use it once you need it, but on the side of I-75, at 12:45 am, in 30 degree weather isn’t the greatest classroom. I once found myself in a similar situation where I discovered that my truck’s tire iron didn’t fit my aftermarket wheels. Luckily I had someone nearby I could rely on to ferry me back & forth to a store to get a socket that fit. I lucked out big time, but I haven’t forgotten how much harder that episode would have been without outside help. Identify your likely problems, determine reasonable ways to deal with them, make smart purchasing decisions, and learn to use the things you buy.
Further Study
Forum post detailing Cutright’s EDC Car Kit over at the Everyday Marksman blog.
Stay ready, and I’ll see you next Friday. -S_S
Pro-Gun Millennial 