What to Keep in Your Car for an Emergency

There's a version of this list that includes forty items and a folding shovel. This isn't that list.

A car emergency kit only needs to do seven jobs: light, first aid, warmth, visibility, getting moving again, food and water that survive a trunk, and something to occupy a bored kid. Everything below is organized by those jobs rather than by shopping aisle, with an honest note at the end about what most store-bought kits leave out.

Start with what actually goes wrong

Roadside trouble is common and mostly undramatic. AAA handles close to 30 million roadside assistance calls a year, and the large majority are batteries, tires, and keys locked in the car. Not catastrophes. A battery that didn't survive a cold night, a tire that found a screw, a stretch of road where help takes longer to arrive than anyone expected.

So the goal isn't to prepare for disaster. It's to make an ordinary bad hour a lot less miserable.

Light

Breakdowns happen after dark more often than they should, and being able to see is the foundation of everything else.

• A flashlight. A real one, not your phone. Your phone is the thing that calls for help; don't spend its battery on illumination.
• Light sticks. No batteries to die, and you can hand one to a child without worrying about it.
• A headlamp if you'll ever need both hands, which you will if you're changing a tire.
• A hand-crank light for the long wait. Batteries eventually run out. A crank doesn't.

First aid

A first aid kit in the house is for planned problems. A first aid kit in the car is for the ones that happen twenty minutes from anywhere.

Bandages in a range of sizes, antiseptic wipes, gauze, butterfly closures, and hand cleaning wipes cover the realistic range: road rash, a cut from a jack, a scraped knee at a rest stop. Add any medication your family takes regularly, in a small labeled container you check when you check the kit.

Warmth and shelter

A stopped car loses heat quickly, and running the engine to stay warm isn't always an option.

• Emergency reflective blankets. Thin, cheap, and startlingly effective.
• Hand warmers.
• Ponchos, because changing a tire in the rain is its own kind of misery.
• An emergency sleeping bag or two if you drive rural routes or long distances.

If winter driving is part of your normal year, our winter storm kits carry heavier versions of everything in this section.

Visibility and safety

This is the category people skip, and it's the one that protects you most.

• A reflective triangle, placed well behind the car so a driver coming over a rise has room to change lanes.
• A reflective safety vest, worn any time you're outside the car near traffic.
• Heavy work gloves for hot engine parts, cold metal, and broken glass.
• A whistle, which carries much further than a voice and takes almost no effort to use.

Having the gear is half of it. Knowing how to use it is the other half, which is what our guide to what to do when your car breaks down covers in detail.

Getting moving again

• Jumper cables. The single most-used item in any car kit. Six-gauge and at least 16 feet, so you're not depending on a good Samaritan being able to park nose-to-nose with you.
• A tow strap if you drive anywhere you might slide off a road.
• Duct tape and rope. Neither is elegant. Both have gotten a lot of people home.
• A multitool.

Food and water

Not for surviving three days. For the ninety minutes with a hungry six-year-old.

The complication is that a car is a terrible place to store either. Trunk temperatures swing from below freezing to well above summer air temperature, and ordinary bottled water and snacks degrade fast in that environment.

Sealed emergency water pouches and calorie-dense ration bars are built for exactly this. The best of them carry US Coast Guard approval, which means they're rated for lifeboat storage. That's about as harsh an environment as exists. If you'd rather use regular bottled water and granola bars, that's fine, but rotate them seasonally rather than annually.

Something to do

A deck of cards costs almost nothing and does more for a long wait with kids than most of the gear above. It's the item people leave off checklists and remember they wanted.

What most kits leave out

Here's the honest part. Most pre-packed car kits, including good ones, don't include these, and they're worth adding yourself:

• A phone charging cable and a small power bank. Your phone is the most important safety device in the car.
• A tire inflator or sealant. Some flats can be handled without a tow.
• A seat belt cutter and window breaker. Small, cheap, and stored where the driver can reach it. Not in the trunk.
• A small fire extinguisher rated for vehicle use.
• Cash. Twenty dollars in the glove box has solved more problems than it has any right to.
• Copies of insurance and registration, plus an emergency contact card in case your phone is locked or dead.
• Prescription medications your family can't skip.

Where should you keep a car emergency kit?

A kit buried under the stroller and the folding chairs is a kit you won't reach. Split it in two.

Keep the things you need immediately in the glove box or center console: a light, basic first aid, the seat belt cutter, the charging cable. Keep the bulkier gear in the trunk: jumper cables, blankets, water, the triangle.

And tell everyone who drives the car where both parts are. A kit only the person who bought it knows about is half a kit.

How often should you check it?

Twice a year. Daylight saving weekends are the easiest reminder there is, since you're already changing clocks and smoke detector batteries.

Each time: test the flashlight, check expiration dates on food, water, and medications, confirm nothing has been borrowed and not returned, and swap seasonal items in or out. Batteries drain even sitting unused, which is the argument for owning at least one light that doesn't need them.

Common questions about car emergency kits

Is a pre-packed kit worth it, or should I build my own?
Either works. Building your own costs less and lets you choose every item; a pre-packed kit costs more and takes an afternoon off your list. The failure mode is the same for both, which is meaning to do it and not getting to it. The kit that exists beats the better kit you haven't assembled.

Can I just keep regular bottled water in my car?
Yes, as long as you rotate it seasonally rather than once a year. Repeated heating and freezing degrades plastic bottles faster than most people expect. Sealed emergency water pouches are built for that temperature swing and store for years.

How long should jumper cables be?
At least 16 feet, in six-gauge or heavier. Shorter cables assume the other car can pull directly nose-to-nose with yours, which often isn't possible on a shoulder or in a packed parking lot.

Does a car emergency kit expire?
Parts of it do. Food, water, medications, and adhesive bandages all have dates. Batteries drain in storage even unused. The gear itself lasts years, which is why a twice-yearly check focuses on the consumables rather than the whole kit.

The part that matters most

Here's the question worth sitting with, and it isn't about the gear.

If you weren't in the car, would anyone else in your family know what's in it or how to use it? Could your teenager find the jumper cables? Would your partner know there's a light in the glove box?

A kit is only as good as the number of people who know it's there. Ten minutes showing everyone who drives the car what's in it, and where, does more than any single item you could add.

You can assemble everything on this list yourself in an afternoon and a couple of stores. Plenty of people do, and there's nothing wrong with it. If you'd rather have it handled, our RoadReady car emergency kits come packed in three levels: a glove box kit, a full trunk kit with jumper cables, and one built for two people and a longer wait. All three arrive ready to put in your vehicle the day they show up.

Either way, the important part is the same. It lives in the car, and the people who drive it know what's in it. If you want a printable version of this list for your next kit check, it's in our free checklists hub, alongside the rest of our Be Ready Basics guides.