Curious about the most common road trip mishaps you should avoid? You reached the right place. Road trips are fun and an item on most Americans’ bucket lists. The reality of being on a road trip may not be as you see it on television or in travel magazines. While most road trips start and end well, mishaps are not uncommon and can do a great deal of dampening the fun on your road trip.
If you plan to take a road trip, identifying the common mishaps can be an excellent way to ensure that you avoid them and have an experience of a lifetime on your road trip.
Here are some of the ten most common mishaps on road trips.
1. Failing to Get a Full Car Tune Up
Road trips can mean traveling for days in your car and over hundreds or thousands of miles. Such a strain on your vehicle means a high chance of a mechanical breakdown.
Mechanical breakdowns can be especially stressful when your drive takes you far from where you could get assistance. That’s why you must always conduct a full car tune-up before departure to avoid a car breakdown while on the road trip.
2. Not Leaving Your Home in Order
When you are leaving on a road trip, you want your mind to be on nothing else but enjoying the moments. So, you want to ensure that your home is in order before leaving.
For example, you want to be sure that all taps and faucets are turned off and that you have made security arrangements for your home. Minor mishaps like open faucets could cause flooding in your home, which could mean you have to cancel your trip to attend to them.
3. Poor or No Cell Reception
The internet and cellular networks are a part of life, and it’s hard to imagine life without them. When going on a road trip, it is important to consider that your trip can take you to places without network coverage.
So, you may need to make provisions for what you need beforehand, such as downloading Google maps and informing family and friends of your whereabouts before entering poor or no connection zones.
4. Traffic Jams
Getting stuck in traffic while on a road trip can be quite a damper to your travel spirit. Also, it presents a high risk of an incident that could spoil your trip, such as getting in an accident or experiencing acts of road rage.
The best strategy for avoiding inconveniences resulting from traffic jams is planning your travel in such a way as to avoid driving through cities during rush hours.
5. Running Out of Gas
You may have seen in movies cases of vehicles running out of gas in a secluded place and a driver having to travel miles to get gas.
Such incidents often occur in real life and can be a major inconvenience. Therefore, always ensure that your vehicle has enough fuel when embarking on a road trip. If you plan on going many miles off-road, it is best to carry extra fuel.
6. An Accident
While you could try your best to stay safe, not all road users will apply the same level of caution, meaning you could get hit by a car or a truck. If you are hit by a car, you may need to contact a car accident attorney for help filling a claim.
If you are hit by a truck, your best option would be to work with a renowned law firm such as Munley Law, for example, to guarantee that you get an experienced lawyer.
Getting into an accident is among the mishaps that can grind your road trip to a halt. Taking defensive driving classes before setting off on road trips would be a great idea to help you drive even more carefully among careless drivers.
7. Falling Sick
You could start the journey in perfect health but fall sick at some point on your road trip. At other times, your travel companions can fall sick. Enjoying your road trip when you or your companion is sick is impossible.
So the best option would be to take a break and visit a doctor. If the illness is easily manageable, you may only need to wait a little while before returning to the road. If the illness is severe, you may have to cancel the trip to focus on healing.
8. Arguments
You could be on the same page with your travel companions regarding taking a road trip. But your ideas of a road trip could vary widely, resulting in heated arguments that could spoil all the fun.
Arguments can be about anything from the kind of music to play, what stops to make, where to sleep, or sleeping hours. The best way of avoiding arguments is to plan for everything before departure and make compromises that will help every person feel like a part of the road trip.
9. Unpredictable Weather
Weather conditions can change on a whim. One moment you are driving on a bright sunny day, and the next, you are in torrential rainfall or a storm, making driving relatively risky.
You can not change the weather, but it is advisable to check out weather forecasts to determine if the weather suits your travel plans. If one destination has a poor weather forecast, it’s best to wait it out or change plans.
10. Forgetting Necessary Items
One advantage of a road trip is its flexibility. But you must be careful about taking the flexibility too far, like not having a plan.
You could change plans about stops and detours as you go, but some provisions are a must-have before leaving home, and forgetting them could result in added costs and significant inconveniences.
So it’s best to make a list of must-haves such as passports and visas, phone charges, vehicle registration documents and valid insurance, torch, spare tires, first aid kits, etc.
Final Words
A road trip is supposed to be an experience of a lifetime, and once you are on one, you can’t wait for the next one. But a bad experience can make you hate getting back on the road. The ten mishaps mentioned in this guide are some of the most common, which, if you can avoid them, can ensure you will enjoy your trip.
