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Transporting your prized Christmas tree can be all fun and good until it becomes a Final Destination-style missile into the windshield of the car behind you. Keep the holidays jolly by properly securing your tree to the roof of your vehicle.
Chevy recently released some helpful pointers about securing your Christmas tree to the top of your vehicle in light of the recent report released by AAA stating that approximately 20 million Americans did not secure their tree to their vehicle properly last year. Now that does not mean 20 million injuries occurred, but over the past four years, 200,000 crashes, 39,000 injuries and 500 deaths were a result Christmas tree-related motor vehicle accidents. If you don’t think those numbers are insane, we have a whole other bag of issues going on.
In order to reduce these easily avoidable incidents, you can follow some simple steps when transporting your tree. First, use the right vehicle, don’t bring your Smart Car to transport a 7-foot tree. Bring an appropriately sized vehicle so the tree is not extending beyond the total length of the vehicle. Then decide whether or not it is wisest to transport Sammy Spruce inside or outside of your vehicle. If you opt for inside, we recommend laying down a tarp so you don’t get sap and needles all over the interior of your vehicle.
If you are going to secure the tree to the outside of your vehicle, make sure to utilize your vehicle’s cross rails instead of looping through the interior of the vehicle. If you cross rails are properly fixed to the vehicle, they will easily secure your tree. Before we go into tying down the vehicle, it is important to ensure the tree is bundled with rope or netting to ensure the tree is aerodynamic and no branches fly off. Once that is done, you should place the tree with the stump facing the nose of the vehicle, then begin to secure the vehicle using high-tensile rope to ensure it can withstand the weight of the tree as well as the force wind creates pushing against the tree as you head back home. Using a figure eight motion, secure the rope around the tree and the cross rails. This should be done with several different pieces of rope just in case one should become compromised.
Once the entire vehicle is secure, plan a route that isn’t mach-1 and drive with caution. Although we recommend you listen to Christmas music on the way home, don’t have it so loud that you can’t hear what is going on above you.