Hitting the road this summer in your RV, here are some tips to keep you and your family safe. Over 43.6 million people will travel the roads, many of them in RVs.
There are definitely differences between road-tripping by car and by RV. Jay Bloom from Erie Insurance points out the differences:
- Drivability: Driving a car is second nature for people who do it all the time, but maneuvering an RV is different, especially if you’re doing it for the first time.
- Visibility: Anyone who drives a car is familiar with blind spots, but these can seem even more pronounced for new RVers.
- Maintenance: Both cars and RVs require regular maintenance like oil changes and tire rotations, but RVs have many additional features to attend to, like water, sewer and electrical lines, awnings, slide outs and seals.
- Getting around and gassing up: When you’re on a car trip, you use your car for sightseeing, and you don’t think twice about hitting a drive-through for dinner or pulling into any service station to gas up. Depending on the size of your RV, however, those things may not be practical.
- Insurance: Whether for a car or an RV, you’ll need liability insurance, which covers injuries to others or damage to others’ property if you are responsible for an accident; and you will also likely want comprehensive and collision insurance to cover your own vehicle.
To help get ready to hit the road follow these tips:
- Spend some time practicing driving your RV in a safe place away from traffic, maybe an empty parking lot. Leave lots of room for wide turns. Keep a proper distance between you and other vehicles.
- Be aware of motorcycles and cars following too closely behind your RV.
- Put your RV on a monthly, seasonal, and yearly maintenance schedule. Don’t get caught in the wilderness without access to RV road assistance.
- Consider towing a vehicle so that you can park at a campsite and use the smaller vehicle to get around.
- Plot your trip so you know where campgrounds accommodate RVs along with fuel/rest stops to accommodate your RV.
- Following these tips in order to have a safe and happy RV road trip.
Courtesy: Erie Insurance, and National Underwriter Property/Casualty 360.