Off-Road Driving & Safety Tips

Going off roading? Here are your choices:


Carry your stuff on your back; walk beside a mule with your stuff on its back; ride in comfort with your stuff in the back of a four-wheel-drive.


The speed will be about the same. If you drive much faster than a walking pace there’s a chance you’ll be forced into the first option.


As a teenager, I wanted to cross a muddy section of field in a two-wheel-drive pickup on near-bald tires. I assessed that my only hope was speed. (If you ever say, “My only hope is ... ” know that the rest of the sentence is ”a miracle.”) When the old Ford hit the swampy strip, it sunk floorboard-deep into the mud and came to a near-instant stop. The rear tires must have come off the ground because I feared it was about to flip forward.


Here are the lessons I should have learned, but didn’t because I was a teenager: