Survival Items Every Driver Should Have in Their Vehicle for Winter

Survival Items Every Driver Should Have in Their Vehicle for Winter

You hopefully already have emergency essentials in your vehicle, such as jumper cables, a first aid kit, roadside reflectors, and basic repair items. But, when winter comes around, you’ll need to update your vehicle emergency kit to include these items for cold weather survival.

1. Winter-Proof Water

Water is one of the most important survival items to have, but it can easily freeze in your vehicle in winter conditions. To ensure you have emergency water even in winter:

• Store sports drinks instead: Their electrolytes will prevent freezing for another 10 degrees or so.
• Use smaller containers: Instead of storing water in a large container, use several smaller bottles. Even if they freeze, they will thaw faster than one large chunk of ice.
• Use a cooler: What keeps your drinks cold in the summer will also keep them warmer in the winter.
• Keep water inside your vehicle: Ideally, keep the water bottles inside your vehicle, such as underneath the front seat or in a cooler in your backseat. The heat from inside the vehicle will help keep the water thawed.
• Leave 10% headroom: Most water bottles you buy in the store get shipped without heating, so won’t burst if frozen. However, if you are repackaging water into your own bottles, make sure there is at least 10% empty space so they don’t burst as the water expands during freezing.
• Buy a 12v travel cup: These can be used to thaw frozen water during emergencies.

2. Winterized Bug Out Bag

Water isn’t the only survival item that can be affected by freezing temperatures. These items can also be affected by extreme cold:

• Battery-operated devices: Batteries drain faster in the cold, and can stop working completely in freezing temperatures. This includes emergency radios and flashlights.
• Medications: Some medications can lose potency when stored in extreme cold.
• Water filters: Water residue in these can freeze, causing damage to ceramic and hollow-fiber water filters, rendering them ineffective.
• Duct tape: The adhesive on duct tape can freeze, making it less sticky and effective.
• Chemical hand warmers: Ironically, these need to be stored at cool temperatures. Storing hand warmers in freezing temps can cause them to lose their effectiveness.

Because of these issues, don’t keep these survival items in your vehicle. Instead, pack a winter version of your Bug Out Bag (BOB) and put these items in it, along with water and other essentials.

Get in the habit of bringing the BOB with you whenever driving more than a certain distance from home, or when driving in remote areas. Since the BOB primarily stays at home or in the heated vehicle, you won’t have to worry about items succumbing to the cold.

3. Full Set of Winter Clothes

Even if you always dress appropriately when heading out in the cold, you’ll still want a full set of spare winter clothes in your vehicle. You’ll be grateful to have these, for example, if the clothes you are wearing get wet when you leave the vehicle.

4. Candles

A single candle can produce 80 to 100 watts of heat. While this might not seem like much, it can make a huge difference in raising the temperature inside a small space like a stranded vehicle. Just make sure you have a sturdy, heat-proof surface to put the candle on.

The brand UCO makes a candle heater. It’s designed for tents, but would also work in a vehicle. The top of the candle heater is flat so you can use it to heat water.

5. Sleeping Bags

Be sure to have a sleeping bag for each person that typically rides in your vehicle. The sleeping bags should be rated for extreme cold temperatures in case you are stranded in your vehicle for extended periods of time.

6. Vehicle Insulation Materials

In addition to sleeping bags, you’ll want materials to put up inside your vehicle for extra insulation. For example, you can cover the inside windows with wool blankets or Mylar blankets to help trap heat.

7. Bright Cloth or Flag

You should always have reflective triangles in your vehicle in case of an accident. However, if you are stranded in your vehicle, these triangles can quickly get covered in snow. To ensure you are located by rescuers, you’ll also need a bright colored cloth or flag to attach to your vehicle’s antenna.

8. Traction Aids and Snow Management

These are important to ensure you can clear snow off your vehicle and get out of drifts. They include:

• Snow shovel
• Windshield brush and scraper
• Sand, cat litter, or traction mats
• Snow chains

9. Emergency Bathroom

Each time you leave your vehicle, you will lose some of the heat trapped inside. You also risk getting covered in snow, which will then melt on your clothes and cause you to get wet. So, while it hopefully won’t come to this, you’ll need to pack an emergency bathroom in your vehicle so you don’t have to go outside. This can be as simple as a 5-gallon bucket with some of the cat litter you packed for snow traction.