Icy weather sometimes means getting stuck in your car without any traction on the road. Need to get out of a slick spot when your car won’t move? Redditor orion726 suggests using the floor mats in front of your seats.
“If you get your car stuck on ice somewhere like a parking lot or side of the road (not a ditch), use your floor mats to help give your tires enough traction to get you moving again. Turn the floor mats upside down and put them under the wheels that are slipping (either front or rear wheel drive vehicles). Then drive forward as far as you can. You can stop and move the mats again to keep “inching” your way back to better road. Sometimes it may multiple attempts to get you back to a safe spot, but this is a very effective trick to help get you unstuck. Also, remember to take it easy on the brakes and try to keep the accelerating/decelerating to a minimum. Slow steady speeds are the best approach.”
Of course, doing this will all but kill your floor mats. That’s better than getting stuck indefinitely, but several people suggest keeping a few extra cheap rubber mats in your trunk for emergency purposes. That way you don’t get stuck and you don’t have to replace your nice floor mats when you free yourself from the road’s icy grip.
