Winter Weather Driving Tips from AAA

Severe weather can be both frightening and dangerous for automobile travel. Motorists should know the safety rules for dealing with winter road emergencies. AAA reminds motorists to be cautious while driving in adverse weather. For more information on winter driving, the association offers theHow to Go on Ice and Snow brochure, available through most AAA offices. Contact your local AAA club for more information.

AAA recommends the following winter driving tips:

• Avoid driving while you’re fatigued. Getting the proper amount of rest before taking on winter weather tasks reduces driving risks.
• Never warm up a vehicle in an enclosed area, such as a garage.
• Make certain your tires are properly inflated.
• Never mix radial tires with other tire types.
• Keep your gas tank at least half full to avoid gas line freeze-up.
• If possible, avoid using your parking brake in cold, rainy and snowy weather.
• Do not use cruise control when driving on any slippery surface (wet, ice, sand).
• Always look and steer where you want to go.
• Use your seat belt every time you get into your vehicle.

Tips for long-distance winter trips:

• Watch weather reports prior to a long-distance drive or before driving in isolated areas. Delay trips when especially bad weather is expected. If you must leave, let others know your route, destination and estimated time of arrival.
• Always make sure your vehicle is in peak operating condition by having it inspected by a AAA Approved Auto Repair facility.
• Keep at least half a tank of gasoline in your vehicle at all times.
• Pack a cellular telephone with your local AAA’s telephone number, plus blankets, gloves, hats, food, water and any needed medication in your vehicle.
• If you become snow-bound, stay with your vehicle. It provides temporary shelter and makes it easier for rescuers to locate you. Don’t try to walk in a severe storm. It’s easy to lose sight of your vehicle in blowing snow and become lost.
• Don’t over exert yourself if you try to push or dig your vehicle out of the snow.
• Tie a brightly colored cloth to the antenna or place a cloth at the top of a rolled up window to signal distress. At night, keep the dome light on if possible. It only uses a small amount of electricity and will make it easier for rescuers to find you.
• Make sure the exhaust pipe isn’t clogged with snow, ice or mud. A blocked exhaust could cause deadly carbon monoxide gas to leak into the passenger compartment with the engine running.
• Use whatever is available to insulate your body from the cold. This could include floor mats, newspapers or paper maps.
• If possible run the engine and heater just long enough to remove the chill and to conserve gasoline.

Tips for driving in the snow:

• Accelerate and decelerate slowly. Applying the gas slowly to accelerate is the best method for regaining traction and avoiding skids. Don’t try to get moving in a hurry. And take time to slow down for a stoplight. Remember: It takes longer to slow down on icy roads.
• Drive slowly. Everything takes longer on snow-covered roads. Accelerating, stopping, turning – nothing happens as quickly as on dry pavement. Give yourself time to maneuver by driving slowly.
• The normal dry pavement following distance of three to four seconds should be increased to eight to ten seconds. This increased margin of safety will provide the longer distance needed if you have to stop.
• Know your brakes. Whether you have antilock brakes or not, the best way to stop is threshold breaking. Keep the heel of your foot on the floor and use the ball of your foot to apply firm, steady pressure on the brake pedal.
• Don’t stop if you can avoid it. There’s a big difference in the amount of inertia it takes to start moving from a full stop versus how much it takes to get moving while still rolling. If you can slow down enough to keep rolling until a traffic light changes, do it.
• Don’t power up hills. Applying extra gas on snow-covered roads just starts your wheels spinning. Try to get a little inertia going before you reach the hill and let that inertia carry you to the top. As you reach the crest of the hill, reduce your speed and proceed down hill as slowly as possible.
• Don’t stop going up a hill. There’s nothing worse than trying to get moving up a hill on an icy road. Get some inertia going on a flat roadway before you take on the hill.
• Stay home. If you really don’t have to go out, don’t. Even if you can drive well in the snow, not everyone else can. Don’t tempt fate: If you don’t have somewhere you have to be, watch the snow from indoors.

How to fireproof your Christmas tree

First, let us go through the materials you'll need to fireproof your tree.  You'll need the following materials: Karo syrup from the supermarket, Epsom salt from the drug store, a small can of "Boraxo" from the supermarket, liquid chlorine bleach from your laundry closet, and a small packet of chelated iron (it's pronounced KEY-lated) from the garden shop or plant store.  You'll also need a two-gallon bucket or pail.

Secondly, here are some hints for choosing the freshest tree.  Keep in mind that most trees are cut six to ten weeks before you see them in your neighborhood.  That's one problem, but the other is going to hamper  your choosing the right tree.  This happens because most Christmas trees today are "sprayed" with a green dye at the Christmas tree farm a week or two before they are cut and shipped to market.  This dye is sprayed on all trees, the good and the bad, making it difficult for the consumer to tell precisely which is a healthy tree and which is not.  However, it isn't a hopeless cause.

When you go shopping for your Christmas tree, find one that meets your standards for height, shape and fullness.  When you've narrowed your choice to a few trees, check to see that each is healthy.  Find a bad side of the tree, then try and snap a very small branch with your fingers.  Preferably, this should be at the bottom of the tree because this is the first place where water would be in short supply.  Try to snap the branch with your fingers; if it snaps easily, know right away that the tissue is dead, and the story is the same for the rest of the tree.  DON'T BUY THAT TREE!

However, if the branch doesn't snap easily, that's a good indication that the tissue is very much alive.  But don't stop there.  Snap the mall branch just the same, and then look at the woody tissue under the bark.

If the color is white or a pale green, then the tissue is alive, and the tree healthy.  If the wood looks to be brown or close to it, that means the tissue is in the process of dying, in which case you do not buy that tree!  No matter what, ALWAYS BUY A TREE THAT HAS LIVE TISSUE, either white or pale green.  This means that the homemade preservative that you're about to make will make it fireproof!

Now that you've purchased your tree, let's show you how to fireproof it!

1.  Once you get home, get a saw and IMMEDIATELY make a fresh cut at the base of the tree trunk.  This is MANDATORY for any tree you've bought.  Go down about an inch ABOVE the bottom of the trunk and make a fresh cut there with your saw.  Try to make a level cut when you do.

2.  Next, let's consider a place for storing your tree because, ideally, YOU SHOULD BE BUYING YOUR TREE AT LEAST 10 DAYS BEFORE CHRISTMAS.  If it's longer that that, fine, but don't buy it at the last minute and expect to have it fireproofed before it goes into the house.  Storage should not be a problem as long as the tree is protected from the wind.  An ideal place would be the garage, a carport, possibly a balcony for apartment dwellers.  The last resort would be a basement, hopefully a cool one.

3.  Immediately after making your cut at the bottom of the tree trunk, mix your homemade preservative.

Into the two-gallon bucket, add HOT WATER from the kitchen faucet. Fill the bucket with hot water to within an inch or so of the top of the bucket.  Then, into the hot water, add the following ingredients:

...two cups of Karo syrup

...two ounces of liquid chlorine bleach

...two pinches of Epsom salt

...one-half teaspoon of Boraxo

...one teaspoon of chelated iron

Stir these ingredients thoroughly in the bucket, then IMMEDIATELY stand the trunk of the tree in this solution.  Leave the tree in the bucket until the day comes when you want to take the tree indoors for decoration.

4.  When the tree goes indoors, stand the trunk in the tree stand and decorate it as you always do, then move the tree into its final resting place in the house.  THEN, GET THE BUCKET FILLED WITH YOUR INGREDIENTS, HAVE A PLASTIC CUP HANDY, DRAW OFF THE MIXTURE FROM THE

BUCKET AND FILL THE WELL OF THE TREE STAND RIGHT UP TO THE TOP.

5.  Here, assign some responsibility for what happens after that. Someone in the family must see to it that, EVERY DAY WITHOUT EXCEPTION, THE WELL OF THE TREE STAND MUST BE KEPT FILLED WITH THE SOLUTION IN YOUR TWO-GALLON BUCKET.

A hint: in the morning when you get up, FILL THE WELL OF THE TREE STAND WITH FLUID RIGHT UP TO THE TOP.  When you retire for the evening AGAIN FILL THE WELL OF THE TREE STAND.  The well must be kept filled so the solution is always readily available to your Christmas tree, and then IT IS FIREPROOFED.

How can the tree be fireproofed this way?  Actually, it's very easy and let's explain why...

The Karo syrup provides the SUGAR, and it is only in the presence of sugar that tremendous amounts of water will be taken up by the exposed tissue at the base of the tree trunk.  Without the sugar, only the smallest bit of water will be absorbed.  However, in the presence of the sugar, you can expect more than one and one-half gallons of the water to be absorbed by the tree during the 10 to 14-day period that the tree is exposed to your homemade preservative.

But there is more.  Thanks to the boron you have supplied (in the Boraxo), the water and sugar will be moved to every needle and branch of your tree.  Remember that boron is what makes sugar move, not only in trees, but vegetables, fruits and even house plants.

Then, there's the Epsom salt and the chelated iron.  Epsom salt is magnesium sulfate, and magnesium (together with iron) are the center molecules in the process we know as chlorophyll production. By making

the magnesium and iron available to the tree, you're assuring yourself of green needles, even if the tree was not sprayed at the tree farm before it was shipped to market.

Oh yes, why the liquid chlorine bleach?  Chlorine stops a mold from forming when water and sugar stand for any period of time.  Here, the chlorine stops the mold from forming in the bucket and the material added to the well of your tree stand.

Finally, what are the benefits from preserving your tree this way?

1.  Your tree will be SOAKING WET with water, in fact, at least 800 percent more water that when the tree was growing in the forest.

2.  The tree will NOT become a fire hazard in your house because it is soaking wet, almost like a sponge.

3.  No needles will drop, no matter what variety of evergreen you are displaying in your house.  At the same time, the tree will give off a fragrance like that which you've sensed when walking through a

forest of evergreens.

4.  Finally, make the test.  When the holidays are over and the tree is taken down in the house, move the tree outdoors and cut one of  the branches.  Then, move away from the tree, light a match, and see

if the branch will burn.  IT WON'T...guaranteed!

5.  Also, if you have an outdoor garden of any size, be ecology conscious.  Cut the branches from the tree, then scatter the branches over the mulch previously applied to your roses, tulip and bulb garden, atop the mulch over your flower bed.  A thick layer of these evergreen boughs is added protection for your plants over the winter.

Then, cut up the tree trunk into small sections and add it to the trash can.

So, fireproof your live evergreen this Christmas and enjoy a Safe and Happy Holiday!