There are many key elements of an Atlanta car accident claim. Hopefully, you’ll never need to deal with them, though.
While you can’t control the other drivers on the road and may be put into a position where you end up in an accident anyway, you can control your own behavior to try and react to everyone around you. One such behavior is to keep your windshield clean and clear so you can see everything in front of you.
Tips for Keeping Your Windshield Clean
Being able to see clearly while on the roadway at all times is essential when it comes to staying safe. To help keep your vision clear and trip secure the following some essential tips for keeping your windshield clean and clear of debris.
Maintain Your Windshield Wipers
Using your windshield wipers is essential when you’re driving in the rain or snow or when a bug splats on the glass. However you need to make sure you only use them when the windshield is wet. Or you risk damaging them.
If you’re low on fluid then refill it as soon as possible. Don’t use your wipers to clear away ice and snow that have settled onto the car. Use a snow brush designed for cars to remove the snow and either a scraper or deicer to remove the ice.
You also need to clean your windshield wipers once in a while to keep them maintained. This is because they can’t clean themselves; dirt and debris will simply stick to them and actually do more harm than good if allowed to build up. Also the wipers don’t clean the entire windshield. The area below them may require extra attention to remove excess debris.
Once cleaned, take a look at your windshield wipers. If even just one of them looks worn out, replace both of them; the other may either have hidden damage or be close to breaking down as well.
Remove All Snow and Ice Yourself
You should not remove snow and ice with your windshield wipers. When you’re driving, you can use them to get rid of any snowflakes that melt on the windshield, but that’s it. Using your wipers to try and remove blankets of snow or layers of ice will damage the windshield wipers and leave you with a bigger mess to deal with. Instead, turn on your car’s defrost setting.
Then, grab your snow brush and carefully remove the snow from the car. Small amounts can be easily wiped off in any direction, but heavy layers need to be carefully shifted so you don’t cause any problems. As for ice, you either need to scrape it with an ice scraper or melt it with a deicer. You’ll probably have to do a bit of both to get it all. Never put a hot or even warm liquid on a frozen windshield; you may crack it if you do.
When it looks like it will be at or below freezing when your car is sitting idle, gently adjust your wipers so they are sitting away from the car. This will prevent them from freezing to the windshield and can make removing snow and ice from it much easier. It will also make it easy to remove any snow or ice that has formed on them before placing them back.
Not doing this could cause a lot of problems, from damaging the wipers during their next use to putting snow back on the windshield.
Wash it by Hand
As mentioned in an earlier section, your windshield wipers can’t clean every part of your windshield. They miss the bottom of the windshield completely, and leave a large gap at the top untouched as well. This is why you have to clean your windshield by hand every so often. You have to do it right, though, or you’ll put your safety at risk.
Use a streak-free window glass cleaner, and then two differently colored cloths. One will be used for spreading the cleaner around and picking up dirt and the other is for drying the cleaner off. The different colors will prevent you from mixing them up and creating a bigger mess in the process.
You can also take your car through a car wash to get the windshield cleaned that way. However, this may not work as well as you’d like for a few reasons. Maybe the water is too hard, so it leaves minerals behind as residue, or maybe the dirt is on the inside of the windshield, making the car wash mostly moot.
Even if you are able to get the outside of the windshield cleaned at the car wash, you still need to clean the inside once in a while as well.
