Plan every escape route for feet first and add a vehicle or cart only where the ground allows, because the load advantage of wheels disappears on the rough, concealed routes escapes prefer: a single-horse cart carries 400-500 kg on a good road but only 100-150 kg on soft ground, about the same as 8 bags of 10-15 kg carried on foot. Vehicles also need fuel, usable roads and a place to leave them, so decide for each route what moves the people who cannot walk.
Part of Escape Route Planning
Vehicle versus foot planning is the choice, route by route, between leaving on foot, with a hand cart or animal-drawn cart, or in a motor vehicle, weighing load, speed, noise, conspicuousness and the chance of being blocked.
Wheels Win On Good Ground And Lose Where Escapes Go
On foot a person carries about 25 kg comfortably and the go-bag target is 10-15 kg. A cart pulled by a horse moves far more on a decent road. But the parent article’s advice is to avoid major roads, which are the likeliest to be blocked or watched, and to prefer concealed ground, and that is where wheels do worst. The load table in the cart article (Cart and Wagon Construction) gives a single-horse cart 400-500 kg on a good road or track, 200-300 kg on a rough track and 100-150 kg on soft ground or mud.
Motor vehicles carry more and move faster but need a working road, fuel and a plan for the moment the road is blocked. Fuel spoils over months in storage: the gasoline article gives 6-12 months in a sealed container at moderate temperature for pure gasoline and 3-6 months for E10 (Gasoline Properties).
What You Need
- A list of who cannot walk far (the very young, elders, the injured) and what they need.
- The terrain of each route: is there a track a cart can use?
- A cart, bicycle or vehicle if the terrain and the group justify it; see Bicycle Repair and Fabrication.
- Fuel, as full a tank as practical, stored safely; see Fuel Storage Fire Safety.
- A fallback on foot for every route that has a vehicle option.
Method: Decide Route By Route
Step 1: Make the foot plan first. Bags, caches and timing for the whole group on foot.
Step 2: For each route, ask if wheels help. Check the surface, the width and the choke points. A good track earns a cart; a stream bank does not.
Step 3: Decide who rides. Elders, small children and the injured may need to; the cart is a stretcher on wheels.
Step 4: Stage the vehicle. Parked facing out, not blocked in, with the way clear, and the keys or harness where a named person finds them in the dark.
Step 5: Plan the hand-over. Where does the vehicle stop, and what happens after: hidden, abandoned or taken on.
Worked Example: When A Cart Stops Paying
A group of 8 with bags of 10-15 kg carries 8 × 10 = 80 kg to 8 × 15 = 120 kg on foot.
- Cart on a rough track, 200-300 kg: 200 ÷ 120 = 1.7 to 300 ÷ 80 = 3.75 times the bag load.
- Cart on soft ground, 100-150 kg: 100 ÷ 120 = 0.83 to 150 ÷ 80 = 1.9 times the bag load. At the low end it carries less than the bags.
So the cart’s advantage is large on a good road and thin to nothing on soft ground. And the 200-300 kg and 100-150 kg figures assume fit, well-fed animals. A cart that gets stuck is abandoned, and the load on it must then be carried: so the foot plan is the floor, and the cart is a bonus.
A motor vehicle: the vehicle tanks article gives tanks of 40 to 600 litres by class (Vehicle Tanks). If a car with a 40 L tank uses 10 L per 100 km (an assumed figure), its range is 40 ÷ 10 × 100 = 400 km. Range is rarely the limit: blocked roads, noise and light are.
Common Mistakes
- Planning a vehicle route on the main road. It is the likeliest to be blocked.
- No fallback on foot. A vehicle that will not start or is blocked strands the group.
- Parking the vehicle in the garage with the car boxed in. Someone else’s vehicle blocks it.
- Overloading a cart. Axles and animals fail.
Safety
Fuel, exhaust and vehicles in fires
Do not run an engine in a closed garage or shed: carbon monoxide kills in minutes; see Carbon Monoxide Risk. Fuel vapour is heavier than air and ignites from sparks: store it outdoors, away from buildings, in sealed approved containers. Do not park a fuelled vehicle against the house. Overloaded carts and vehicles overturn on slopes; seat children low and secured.
What’s Next
- Learn next: Evacuation Procedures — the sequence once the plan is made
- Combine with: Staged Equipment — what is waiting where the vehicle stops