Winter Survival Tips For Car Owners
As a young Sales Engineer, I worked the North of England, North Wales & Scotland.
After listening to motorists’ stories from my Dad’s friends I got together my own Winter Survival pack, which I put in the back of my car every time I went out of town in winter.
My pack was a cardboard box with some Newspapers in the bottom, a roll of sellotape, a few big bars of chocolate, a big bottle of mineral water, a sleeping bag, a torch and a half bottle of rum. As well as that I put in a spade, and every time I was driving out of town, I’d add a flask of hot chocolate, which I could drink up at the end of the day when I didn’t need it, and finally, I always put in a warm overcoat or ski-jacket. I made a point of not allowing the fuel to fall below half a tank for two reasons: first, because the extra weight over the back wheels would assist with drive in slippy conditions, and second, so that I would always have enough petrol to keep warm in case I got stuck in bad weather.
In those days, I didn’t know about winter tyres, winter Windscreen Wiper Blades and the like, but I did make sure that my tyres and Car Wiper Blades, fan belt, engine hoses etc were in top fettle.
Of course, this gave my friends lots of chances to rib me mercilessly. but then one day, I and hundreds of other drivers became trapped in blizzard conditions on the M62 for about 10 hours.
This was a miserable situation for everyone else, but for me it was almost like one of Michael Palin’s Ripping Yarns.
The day began completely normally and I set off at approximately Seven am to drive from Lancashire over into South Yorkshire. I stopped at Birch Services, just before the climb up into the Pennine Hills, and filled up the petrol, because it was down to half full. The Motorway Police said the road was fine in spite of the wind and snow, as long as every-one kept moving.
Twenty minutes later, the motorway came to a sudden standstill when an articulated tanker was blown over and jack-knifed blocking most of the carriageway. Within minutes the snow built up around the cars, and the tailback was a few miles long.
Therefore they closed the Motorway in both directions, and used the other carriage way to start taking people back down to the Services. Of course a lone healthy man in his twenties was always going to be one of the last to be rescued, and so I sat there from around Eight in the morning to around Eight in the evening.
I used my spade to dig the snow away from the car & make a wind-break. This minimised the wind-chill and enabled me to safely run the engine once or twice an hour to keep warm. There was no danger of running out of petrol for days. As it went dark I put down the passenger seat & spread out my sleeping bag. I was just beginning to tape thick layers of newspaper onto the inside of the windows when a traffic cop appeared & told me they’d be taking me out within a couple of hours. He was delighted to be offered a steaming cup of hot chocolate spiked with rum!
I was safe warm & unfazed by the situation because I was properly prepared for it. I would have been fine if I’d had to survive all night out there.
The moral of this story is - have a survival box for winter driving. I still do, and no-one pokes fun at me any more. I’ve refined it somewhat, because I now have an electric car kettle instead of a thermos flask, and Silicone Wiper Blades for extreme conditions. Silicone Wiper Blades aren’t just winter Windscreen Wipers, good ones are High Performance Wiper Blades for all conditions.In fact I leave them fitted all year because they have all year performance advantages. Also, from October to March I have winter tyres for improved grip.
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