Does your car have these items?

I come from a very practical family.  My dad is a constant planner.   One of my brothers is an accountant.  They love minimizing risk by planning and sometimes overplanning.  They understand that our time is a precious commodity, and we hate wasting time doing unnecessary things.  So I’m a by-product of my family, and I fully believe in the precautions we set up for each of our vehicles.

Let’s apply this minimizing risk theme to cars.  Cars are a huge mystery to me.  I feel like there was a "man" class I missed in middle school where they taught every guy how to change the oil, what makes a hemi engine different, and what fuel-injected means.  I don’t know any of those things.  I do know that I can pay money to have my oil changed and that hemis and fuel injected something costs more money (what’s up Comm School).

Anyway, I’ve learned that there are 4 things I need in every car to minimize risk.  To minimize the fact that I might waste my time due to car trouble that I should have avoided.

Jumper Cables - The first problem to mitigate is when a car won’t move.  So make sure you have jumper cables in your car.  So if the battery is beat, you can hail a friend or parking lot neighbor and hopefully get your car back in action.  Or you can help out a friend or someone you want to be your friend (nudge nudge) when they ask if you have jumper cables, or at the very worst you can be a good Samaritan to someone.

Flashlight - The next thing you should have in your car is a flashlight.  As trivial as this sounds, it is all kinds of practical when its dark and you’re in trouble.  Whether you’re looking under the hood of your car, or when your dad threw his state championship ring out the window, or when you’re hiking down humpback rock after watching the sunset.  In all those situations, a flashlight comes in pretty handy.

State Map - You should also have a state map in your car.  This thing helps all the time.  Especially, as we get older and our friends start branching out.  I understand the GPS is replacing this item, but I worry that we’re becoming too dependent on the GPS.  Like I’ve met people that don’t even know how to fold a map yet alone read it.  Have a map, and brush up on your skills, because it will help you.

Hide-a-Key - Finally, and most importantly, get a hide-a-key for your car.  This is the story I hear far too often from my friends.

You won’t believe what happened to me…I was out late at night (or on vacation) and I locked myself out of my car at the worst possible time.

Any time you’re locked out of your car is the worst possible time.  No one thinks to themselves, you know what, if I locked myself out of my car right now, I wouldn’t mind.  There are approximately zero situations where that makes sense, and definitely zero if you’re alone.

“You won’t believe…”  No I definitely will believe if you don’t have a hide-a-key.  It happens to all of us.  Our system gets messed up, things are out of order, we're confused.  And boom, worst possible time.  Well if you have a hide-a-key, this situation will never happen.  And trust me if you get locked out of your car just once and you already invested in a hide-a-key, it’s more than paid for itself.

So plan ahead, minimize your risk, put jumper cables, a state map, a flashlight, and a hide-a-key in your car and you’ll thank me later.