How To Get Your Car Unstuck
Getting your car stuck is not fun at all. One moment you're happily driving along, and the next, you find yourself stuck in a rut, completely unable to move. Perhaps you accidentally drove into a ditch. Or maybe you just drove onto mud and sand that was deeper than you anticipated.
Whatever the case may be, your car is stuck, and no matter how much you accelerate, your wheels spin but your car goes nowhere.
Most of us weren't trained to deal with this sort of driving challenge. So in this article, we're going to explore a few ideas of what can be done to try and get our car back out.
Prevention is Better Than Cure
If you've just found this article by Googling "How do I get my car out of mud/sand/a ditch?", this section of the article might not be useful to you right now. So bear with it for a moment.
If you're reading this article so that you don't get your car stuck in the future, pay close attention. 'Prevention is better than cure', as the old saying goes, and that certainly applies here as well.
The first question we need to discuss is, "How do I make sure my car doesn't get stuck?".
To avoid getting stuck, you as a driver need to always be vigilant and pay attention to the road or path you're driving on. It might take a lot of energy to continually scan the road ahead, but it's certainly less of a headache than getting your car stuck. Wherever possible, choose a route that has already been driven on by others. A good sign that you're on a safe path is to look for tire tracks in the sand or mud and follow them carefully. If other cars have made it through, that's a good sign that it's a safe path for you to take as well.
If you come across some mud that you think might be too deep to drive through, get out and take a look. Take a piece of wood or something similar and stick it in the mud to see how deep it'll go. If it's too deep for your tires to handle, then it's a much smarter idea for you to turn around and find another way to your destination.
If you think you're stuck, stop!
Let's say you do decide to keep driving forward and your car comes to a sudden halt. Even though you press down on the accelerator and you can hear your engine roaring, your car refuses to move. That's a sign that you're getting stuck.
Once you realise this is happening, stop accelerating immediately!
You're already stuck, so if you press down on the accelerator, you'll just make your tires spin and dig yourself deeper into the mud or sand.
Take a deep breath and remain calm. Let go of the accelerator, and engage your handbrake to minimise the risk of your car slipping further.
Get Traction
If moving slowly doesn't help, that means that there's just not enough traction for the tires to pull the car out. To help increase traction in your tires, find some rocks, wood, or maybe gravel and place them on the front and back of all your tires. This might help your tires get just enough traction to pull your car out of its rut.
If that doesn't work, some people also recommend using your floor mats to do the same thing. Place those mats under the front of your tires so that they can gain traction. You'll probably end up damaging those floor mats, but if you're stuck, it might be a worthwhile sacrifice.
If you look elsewhere online, many people have come up with very innovative and ingenious methods to get more traction with their tires. However, many of those methods tend to be riskier, so be careful if you decide to use them!