Emergency pack in my car – what’s in it

Survival pack for overnight in car

The other day when I was trying to fit everything in the boot of my car I came across my emergency kit. And it made me laugh. Because in retrospect it seems stupid that I thought I’d need it. But back then, the panic was real.

Driving to work takes me about 50 minutes, over a mountain range that is notorious for heavy snow in the winter. And when I first moved to Austria I had no idea what that meant. I was sure I’d heard stories of people being trapped on Autobahns overnight during particularly bad weather, and I was sure it would happen to poor, inexperienced, always-cold Debbie.

So, I created my own emergency pack. Here’s what’s in it:

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The weird and not-so-wonderful things that end up on the Autobahn

autobahn austriaThe Autobahn is a big thing here in Austria. It’s long, it’s well used and it takes a lot of maintenance to keep everyone safe. So people are very diligent about reporting anything that might cause a disruption or be unsafe. With drivers travelling at 130km/h there is a good reason why. Not just for the ghost drivers (people driving the wrong way), but also for accidents, bad weather conditions, broken down vehicles and random things creating a hazard.

Like, for example, foreign objects. There is nothing more terrifying than coming around a bend at 130 to find a piece of ‘something’ on the road in front of you.

Not to make light of it, but more to praise the almost instantaneous way the radio and traffic authority tells us about these things, I do find myself intrigued about what might be found on the autobahn today.

The most common is a Ladegut which seems to be a generic term for an item that fell off a car or truck… or a Holzstuck  (piece of wood)… or a piece of tyre… and so on.

But then there are the things that are not only less common, but sometimes have me giggling and wondering how the hell they got there in the first place.

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