What Should Be in a Vehicle Emergency Kit?

A vehicle kit is not a toolkit. During a winter storm, a road closure or an evacuation queue, the car becomes a shelter, and warmth is the thing that determines whether occupants are comfortable or in danger.

Warmth comes first

One warm layer, hat and gloves per occupant, plus a blanket or sleeping bag each. This is the part of the kit people skip, and it is the only part that matters if you are stationary for four hours in a snowstorm.

If you are stranded in snow, run the engine only intermittently for heat, and clear snow from the exhaust before you do. A blocked exhaust pushes carbon monoxide straight into the cabin.

Then mobility

Most roadside failures are small: a slow tyre leak, a flat battery, a windscreen buried under ice. Any of them can be solved in ten minutes with the right tool, or turn into hours of waiting without one.

• Jumper cables or a jump starter pack
• 12 V tyre inflator and a pressure gauge
• Torch with spare batteries, kept in the cabin rather than the boot
• Snow shovel, ice scraper and brush
• Reflective warning triangle or vest
• Work gloves

Water, food and contact

Water in bottles that cope with freezing, long-life snack bars, a phone charger that runs from the socket, a first aid kit, and a printed card with emergency contacts and any medical information for the people who normally travel in the car.

Text rather than call if you are stuck and the network is congested — text messages get through far more often.

Keep the kit in the car

The kit only works if it is already in the vehicle. Anything you unload for a trip gets replaced when you get home, and anything consumed — water, snacks, batteries — gets replaced rather than remembered later.

A five-minute check twice a year is enough: when you change your smoke alarm batteries, check the vehicle kit too.