What I Keep in My Truck
What I Keep in My Truck
Every driver carries a story in the back of their vehicle. This is mine, piece by piece, and why each thing earned its spot.
Nothing in my truck is there by accident. Every item is there because of a day on the road when it would have mattered. Some of it is for me. Some of it is for whoever is riding with me. And some of it is for a stranger I have not met yet, standing on a shoulder somewhere with the hood up, because sooner or later that stranger is one of us.
What follows is the whole kit, the small stuff within arm's reach, the go bag, and the heavy gear for when the road really goes sideways. You do not need all of it. Start with what keeps you safe, add what fits the roads you actually drive, and build from there. The film walks through it in the truck. This is the list, with the reasons.
Start with the paperwork, because it is the thing you need most and think about least. My registration and proof of insurance live in the owner's manual folder, in the same place every time, so I never dig through the glove box while someone waits at my window. I also keep track of the spare tire lock key. If you have locking lug nuts or a locked spare and you cannot find that key, a flat tire becomes a tow.
Somewhere in the truck, and I will not tell you where, there is a spare wallet with an extra ID and some cash. Wallets get left on counters, phones die, and card readers go down in the small towns where you most need gas. A little cash and a second ID turn a ruined day into a minor inconvenience. If you build one, hide it well and tell no one but the people who might need it. A spare wallet is only useful if you are the one who finds it.
Then the small comforts, which matter more than they sound. Plenty of napkins, because something always spills. Tylenol and antacids, because road food is road food. Eye drops for long hours into the sun, lip balm for dry cabin air, gum and toothpicks for after the diner. Hand sanitizer for every gas pump handle in America. Hair ties, pens, and a multitool, which between them solve a surprising share of life's small problems, from a loose part to a form that needs signing.
And feminine hygiene products. Whether or not you ever need them yourself, someone you drive with eventually will, often at the worst possible time and miles from a store. They take up almost no space, and keeping them on hand is one of the kindest small things you can do.
Last in this group, and the most serious thing in the truck, are CAT tourniquets. I carry them within reach because a serious crash does not wait for an ambulance, and severe bleeding is one of the few injuries where the first few minutes can decide everything. A tourniquet is only as good as the hands using it, though, so if you carry one, learn it. A Stop the Bleed class takes about an hour or two and is worth every minute.
The go bag is the one thing I would grab if I had to walk away from the truck. It is small on purpose. Inside there is a towel, an extra shirt, an extra pair of socks, and a bottle of water. That sounds simple until you have changed a tire in the rain, or waited hours on a closed highway, and realized that dry socks are a form of hope.
Inside the go bag sits a smaller bag with three things: a first aid kit, a trash bag, and a flashlight. The first aid kit handles cuts and scrapes. The flashlight is for the dark, which is when things tend to break. The trash bag does more than you would think. It is a poncho, a ground cover, a dry seat, and a way to keep the truck clean after a long day. A few carabiners clip the whole thing together, or onto anything else, so nothing rolls around loose.
Check your kit every time the clocks change. Twice a year, pull everything out. Swap the water, check the flashlight batteries, replace anything you used and forgot about, and look at expiration dates on the medicine and the first aid supplies. A kit you packed three years ago and never opened is a kit you are only hoping works.
This is the heavy gear, the stuff that comes out on the bad days. Ratchet straps hold a load down, or hold a broken piece of your own truck together long enough to get somewhere. Work gloves, ear protection, and eye protection come out any time I am pulling, cutting, or working near something under tension or noise. A second towel and a blanket round it out. The blanket is the most flexible thing back there. It keeps you warm on a long wait, keeps a passenger or a stranger warm, and gives you something to kneel on in a gravel lot.
For light, a magnetic flashlight sticks to the truck so both hands stay free, whether I am under the hood or working on a wheel after dark. For being seen, road flares. If you are stopped on a shoulder at night, the cars coming up behind you need every bit of warning you can give them.
And for getting unstuck, a recovery strap with soft shackles and clevis shackles. A recovery strap is not the same as a tow strap. It is built to stretch, which lets the pulling vehicle build momentum and pop you out of mud or snow gently. The rule that matters most is where you connect it: always to a rated recovery point or a shackle mount made for your hitch receiver, never to a tow ball or a random piece of the frame. Under that much force, the wrong connection point can break free and become a projectile. Keep everyone well clear of the line while it is under tension. If you have never done a recovery, practice with someone who has before you need it for real.
When I laid all of this out on camera, I realized something about my own kit. Very little of it is only for me. The napkins, the medicine, the hair ties, the blanket, the tourniquets, the recovery strap. Most of it is just as likely to help a passenger, a friend, or somebody on the shoulder I will never see again. The road is one of the last places where strangers still routinely help strangers, and a good kit is mostly a way of being ready to be that person.
You do not need a truck to carry most of this. A car trunk holds a go bag, a blanket, a flashlight, and a first aid kit with room to spare. Build it slowly. Add something every time the road teaches you a lesson. And if you have something in your trunk that has saved the day, I want to hear about it.
Pack a little extra for somebody else. Then set Out Driving toward wherever you are going, and take the long way home.