2020 was a big year for road trips with a staggering 700 million Americans hopping behind the wheel and heading off for interesting places. If you’re planning on following in those traveler’s footsteps, before you put your foot on the gas, our recommendation is to get prepared.
We probably don’t need to tell you that millions of car accidents happen on an annual basis and that many of those end fatally. By being prepared to drive safe, you set yourself up for road trip success and steeply increase your chances of getting to where you want to go.
Does the prospect of a safe trip sound good to you? If it does and you’d like to take in some road trip tips, we welcome you to dive into our top tidbits of advice below!
- Rest Well
We’ve all been in that place where we’re so excited to get on the road that we can hardly sleep. If you want your road trip to be safe though, you’ll want to take the time you need to dose off and recharge to a reasonable extent.
While required sleep to operate at your best amounts varies, 8 hours of rest before hitting the road tends to be a good baseline. If you can get more (and certainly if you need more) that’s even better.
For those of you that are lucky enough to have a passenger with a driver’s license sitting with you, consider alternating driving responsibilities so each of you can take naps between shifts.
- Make Stops
Even if you’re not sleepy, long stretches of road have the ability to lull even the best of drivers into putting their brains on “auto-pilot”. The best defense against that is to either talk to your passengers (if that’s an option) or to make stops.
Making stops is a great way to keep your brain engaged after long stretches of doing the same thing. It’s also an awesome opportunity to take in some of the local surroundings which is a necessity since seeing the communities that you drive through is oftentimes the most rewarding aspect of road tripping.
- Know Your Route
The fewer surprises you have during a road trip, the more you’ll empower yourself to drive safe. One of the best ways to reduce surprises while on the road is to preview your route before you get behind the wheel.
Route previewing doesn’t have to be a complicated process. Our recommendation is to pop your journey into your GPS and scrub through each step of it so you can see where tricky freeway exchanges are, what terrain looks like in certain areas, and the like.
Furthermore, scrubbing your route before your drive can give you insight into areas that may be forcing detours. Knowing where detour areas are will help you react faster, consequently, getting you to where you need to go in a more timely fashion.
- Have a Backup Map
If you’re like most of us, you’re probably going to rely on your favorite navigation app to guide you safely to your road trip destination.
What happens if your internet loses connection though? Do you have a way to bring up a back up route if your maps application accidentally closes? What would you do if not?
To avoid being stranded without a sense of direction, first off, take our last tip regarding previewing your route to heart. Second, have a backup mapping solution in place.
That backup might mean having a physical map. It could mean printing out physical directions before your trip. You might be able to download offline maps on your phone and a passenger’s for good measure.
Whatever you choose to do, have more than one way to navigate to where it is you need to go.
- Know Your Roadside Service Plan
Imagine this… It’s pouring rain, you know that rain and auto accidents are like yin and yang, and to top it all off, your car just shut down on the side of the road.
What are you going to do?
That’s something that you should figure out before you start on your road trip, not when you’re stuck in a stressful situation.
Having access to services like AAA and having their number written down on a slip of paper (in case your phone dies and you need to borrow a local landline) is a great solution to this problem. Some vehicle providers offer AAA-like services that you might already have access to for free as a perk of your car purchase.
- Get Your Vehicle Serviced
As they say, prevention is worth more than any cure. When it comes to preventing yourself from landing in a situation where you have to find roadside assistance, your best course of action is to get your car serviced.
Pre-road trip services might include checking water levels, oil, washer fluid, and tire pressure. It also doesn’t hurt to top off your AC coolant (assuming you’re headed somewhere hot).
Drive Safe on Your Next Road Trip With Our Tips
We’ve given you 6 powerful tips that will enable you to drive safe the next time you hit the road. Reading tips won’t help you stay safe while driving though. Enacting them will.
To that end, we hope you take what we’ve shared to heart. Believe it or not, doing so could mean the difference between life and death.
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