Have you ever noticed the cars broken down on the side of the highway while you’re driving? Has your car or truck ever broken down and left you on the side of the road? Did you have the things that you needed so that you could fix it and get back on your way?
If so, you’re a prepper even if you didn’t know that! If not, then read on and learn how you can be better prepared the next time you find yourself sitting on the side of the road.
Preppers tend to use a lot of slang and have a lot of stuff. Some of the common slang terms that you hear are:
- BOB – Bug Out Bag
- EDC – Every Day Carry
- GHB – Get Home Bag
But one area that seems to get overlooked by a lot of preppers is their vehicles.
There was a recent winter storm that hit the East coast and a lot of drivers found themselves stranded on I-95 for up to 24 hours. Most had no food or water, no winter clothing, no way to do much of anything other than sit and wait for the road to be cleared.
Do you want to be stuck like that?
If not, then you should put together a Vehicle Preparedness Kit for every vehicle that you own. These kits are seasonal so you will need to swap out some items for summer use instead of winter use. Or you may live in an area that rarely has winter weather so your kit would be set up for warmer weather emergencies.
Here’s a list of common items for a Vehicle Kit:
- Spare Tire
- Lug Wrench
- Jack
- Tool Kit
- Road Flares
- Jumper Cables or Battery Jumper Box
- Tow Straps
- Small Shovel
- Traction helper – wood blocks, sand, kitty litter
- Local Maps
- Windshield Wiper Fluid or De-Icer Fluid
- Mylar Emergency Blanket or an extra blanket from your house
- Extra clothing – warm weather or cold weather depending on your climate
- Hat
- Sunglasses
- Gloves
- Sunscreen
- Band-Aids
- Anti-septic spray
- Water or water filtration like a LifeStraw or Sawyer Mini
- Fire Starter
- Cell Phone Charger
This list can and should be customized to fit your needs. If you have a need for certain types of medications then you may want to add a little of that to your vehicle kit. Think of anything and everything – then eliminate the items that are least likely to be of use or least likely to ever get used.
With any luck you will never need to use your kit but we all know that relying on luck isn’t much of a plan.
Here’s an excellent video from Dave Canterbury on what happened on I-95 and how you can be prepared if you find yourself in a similar situation. Dave is a well known survival expert and always offers great advice.
