Fill Your Tank to be More Safe

Everyone is security-minded and safety-conscious to a degree. Do you lock your doors at night? Do you look right and left before crossing the street? See? You are safety conscious. Answer this question. How full is your primary vehicle’s gas tank right now? More than half full? Good. Less than half full? Read on to increase your safety knowledge.

Some of you are now scratching your head and wondering, “Alain, what the heck does my vehicle’s gas tank have to do with my safety?” The creative might be thinking, “Oh, I get it, someone could blow up my car. But wait, he said more gas was good, wouldn’t that make a bigger explosion? Hmmm?” Fill your tank to be more safe?

Becoming security-minded and thinking about safety is a lot more than joining a martial art or self-defense class and learning how to strike and kick. It’s even more than awareness and avoidance - topics I preach about all the time. There are a number of components to staying safe and being prepared.

As a general practice, you should not return home with a fuel tank that’s less than half full. Why? Because you never know what might happen where you’ll need that vehicle and won’t have time to gas up. In an emergency evacuation you may have to travel a long way to reach safety. Remember Katrina? Other disasters? Roads become jammed and traffic is slow. You don’t want to run out of gas. Keep your fuel tank at least half full and you’ll be better prepared just in case.

Former Israeli Counterterrorism Intelligence Officer Juval Aviv discusses this in his book Staying Safe: The Complete Guide to Protecting Yourself, Your Family, and Your Business. He goes further to discuss what he sees as perhaps an even more important reason to gas up before going home. He says it will test your antiterrorism vigilance. All of us have a tendency to let our guard down in times of peace and tranquility. Right after an attack, everyone is on the look out for another. However, with time, we can be lulled into a false sense of security. Terrorists count on that! That may be one reason they often let considerable time elapse between attacks.

According to Aviv, your gas gauge is an easy way to tell whether you’ve been lulled into a false sense of security – or just gotten lazy.

Remember that we must remember to be security-minded and our safety is up to us. So play it safe and fill your tank before you go home. It just might make a huge difference in time of emergency.