Social Security beneficiaries who are in default on federal student loans could have their monthly payments garnished to pay the debt down. To avoid this financial hit, there are steps you can take to get the loan out of default.
More than 2.6 million Americans who are 62 and older owed a combined $107.3 billion in federal student loan debt at the end of 2022, Fox Business reported, citing U.S. Department of Education data. A relatively small percentage have loans in default. Those who do could have up to 15% of their Social Security benefits garnished, though the agency can’t reduce benefits to less than $750 a month or $9,000 a year, as GOBankingRates recently reported.
Before the garnishment begins, Social Security will send a notice, according to the Legal Aid Society of Cleveland. Debtors can’t appeal, challenge, change or question this debt, meaning the only way to avoid it is to get the loan out of default. Among the ways to do this are to consolidate the loan or set up a rehabilitation program.
Borrowers who received Direct Loans or FFEL Program Loans and qualify for rehabilitation must meet the following requirements, according to StudentAid.gov:
Agree in writing to make nine voluntary, reasonable, and affordable monthly payments (as determined by your loan holder) within 20 days of the due date.
Make all nine payments during a period of 10 consecutive months.
To consolidate a defaulted federal student loan into a new Direct Consolidation Loan, you must either agree to repay the new Direct Consolidation Loan under an Income-Driven Repayment plan or make three consecutive, voluntary, on-time, full monthly payments on the defaulted loan before you consolidate it.
Social Security benefits can be garnished for a number of reasons. In addition to defaulted student loans, these include overdue federal taxes as well as child support, alimony or restitution.
State laws determine a valid garnishment order for child support, alimony and restitution, according to the Social Security Administration. You can’t appeal to the agency to challenge this kind of garnishment. For that, you’ll need to contact an attorney or representative in the jurisdiction where the court issued the order. To appeal a tax garnishment, you will need to contact the IRS at 800-829-7650 to discuss your appeal rights.
The Department of the Treasury can also withhold Social Security benefits to collect delinquent non-tax debts owed to other federal agencies. There is no appeal available under the Social Security Act, so if you find yourself in this situation you can contact Treasury staff at 800-304-3107.
If there are any changes to your garnishment order, you should go to your local Social Security office with a new court order that changes the garnishment of your benefits.
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The food in your kitchen cabinets may not be what it seems.
"I guarantee you any time a product can be passed off as something more expensive, it will be. It's that simple," Larry Olmsted, author of "Real Food/Fake Food," told CNBC.
Fraudsters motivated by economic gain secretly infiltrate the global food market through a variety of means, including counterfeits, dilutions, substitution and mislabeling.
This not only harms consumers' wallets, but it also puts public health and safety at risk.
Some estimates say food fraud affects at least 1% of the global food industry at a cost as high as $40 billion a year, according to the Food and Drug Administration.
"We might not know the overall impact of food fraud because so much of what fraudsters do is hidden from us and has been for centuries." Kristie Laurvick, senior manager of the foods program at the U.S. Pharmacopeial Convention, told CNBC.
Even the FDA says it can't estimate how often this fraud happens or its economic impact.
"Be aware of the product that you put on you or plug in the wall," John Spink, director of the Food Fraud Prevention Think Tank, told CNBC.
Between 2012 and 2021, the most common type food fraud was lying about an animal's origin and dilution or substitution, both ranking at 16% of recorded incidents by food-safety monitor Food Chain ID.
For example, dilution could entail adding a cheaper vegetable oil to an expensive extra virgin olive oil.
"If I drink scotch, I couldn't tell you [the] difference between a $50 bottle and a $5,000 bottle. So, I know I could be deceived at that point," Spink said.
The Food Fraud Prevention Think Tank suggests five questions a consumer can ask themselves to reduce their vulnerability to product fraud.
What type of product is it? Take extra caution with any product that you put on your body, ingest or plug in the wall.
Can you recognize the difference between products?
Do you know the retailer or supplier? Do you trust them?
Are you shopping online? If so, did you find the online supplier from a reliable source?
Complain. Is the supplier legitimate? If so, they will want to know.
Watch the video above to learn more about the different types of food fraud, how the industry is preventing risk, what consumers can do and where fraud in the olive oil, spices and seafood markets may be lurking.
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Studies show that in 2020, nearly 400 people were killed in a car accident related to texting while driving (via Forbes). When you break that down, it equates to more than one person killed each day. The biggest problem with this statistic is each one of these deaths could have been avoided, but people chose their phones over their safety and the safety of others. As it's stated on many billboards and highway signs, no text is worth your life... and they're absolutely right.
Even if you survive a crash, you could have injuries that can affect you forever. Looking at that same data in 2020, we learned approximately 30,000 injuries were caused by people being distracted by their phones. Think about it: would you rather wait 20 minutes until you arrive at your destination to check your texts or potentially change your life in a matter of seconds?
2023 brings the United States a new Congress with a new Republican majority in the House, and (after many many hours of voting) a Republican speaker of the House, and you know what that means: There will be a massive fight over the debt ceiling.
The ceiling, a legal limit on how much outstanding debt the federal government can hold, sparked standoffs between the Democratic White House and Senate and the GOP House in 2011, and again in 2013, and is now set to unfold yet again. The Republican House rebels who voted against Kevin McCarthy in the speaker election over a dozen times finally forced a promise to never pass a “clean” debt ceiling increase (that is, one without spending cuts attached) in exchange for their votes.
Breaching the ceiling would be almost incomprehensibly bad: Beth Ann Bovino, chief US economist at Standard and Poor’s, was hardly alone in 2017 when she predicted that “the impact of a default by the U.S. government on its debts would be worse than the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008, devastating markets and the economy.”
And yet America keeps running this apocalyptic Groundhog Day. Luckily, there is a way out of the dilemma: ending the debt ceiling once and for all. The best way to do this is through legislation, but given the stranglehold of Republican hardliners in the House, that looks impossible. The administration couldn’t raise the debt ceiling on its own, but experts have floated a few options for the president to consider to avert a crisis. None of these are free from risk, and all would likely spark considerable litigation that could in turn cause market turmoil. But all would be preferable to defaulting on US debt.
How Biden could kill the debt ceiling
There are at least four ways a president could nullify the debt ceiling without Congress.
1) Mint the coin
It’s strange but true: As blogger Carlos Muchapointed out back in 2010, an existing law gives the US treasury secretary the power to issue platinum coins of any value she wishes.
The intention of the original 1997 law was about making it easier to produce platinum coins for the international coin collector market, but in 2011, Mucha revived the idea in the context of that year’s debt ceiling standoff. The treasury secretary could issue, say, a platinum coin worth $2 trillion, deposit it into the Treasury’s account at the Fed, and use those funds to sustain the government until the debt ceiling is raised.
The Obama administration found the idea too unserious there to use, but the legal case for minting the coin is as solid as platinum. Just ask debt ceiling hardliner Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), who was sufficiently concerned about the option to introduce legislation to close the platinum coin loophole. The plain text of the 1997 law clearly allows the treasury secretary to do this, and Jay Powell, the Fed chair who in a past career was an expert on the debt ceiling and its dangers, is arguably legally required to accept the coin as a deposit.
You can also imagine more serious variations on the concept. Progressive economist Mike Konczal once proposed issuing a $20 billion coin every day to keep the government running until Congress agrees to abolish the debt ceiling for good. And a $20 billion coin is, what, 1 percent as silly as a $2 trillion one?
2) Invoke the 14th Amendment
Some legal scholars have argued that Section 4 of the 14th Amendment, which specifies that “the validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law ... shall not be questioned,” renders the debt ceiling unconstitutional, as it threatens the validity of the US’s public debts by creating the possibility of default.
This is hardly a consensus position among constitutional law experts, but if Biden were to declare he was ignoring the debt ceiling because it’s unconstitutional, it’s not clear that anyone would have legal standing to sue him and challenge the decision. That helped encourage a number of political actors, from then-House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi to former President Bill Clinton, to urge Obama to invoke the 14th Amendment during his debt ceiling showdowns.
Obama declined repeatedly, arguing in 2013 that “if you start having a situation in which there’s legal controversy about the US Treasury’s authority to issue debt, the damage will have been done, even if that were constitutional, because people wouldn’t be sure.”
3) Declare ignoring the debt ceiling to be the “least unconstitutional” option
University of Florida law professor Neil Buchanan and Cornell law professor Michael Dorf have, in a series of papers, proposed a way out of the debt ceiling that’s related to but distinct from the 14th Amendment option.
Buchanan and Dorf note that Congress, by setting spending and tax policy as well as a debt limit, has given the president three mandates: to spend the amount Congress authorizes, to tax the amount Congress authorizes, and to issue as much debt as Congress authorizes. When the debt ceiling is breached, it becomes impossible for the president to obey all three of these legal requirements.
Prioritizing spending on certain activities and cutting it elsewhere usurps Congress’s spending power by cutting spending unilaterally. Raising taxes without congressional authority would usurp Congress’s taxing power. And ignoring the debt ceiling would usurp Congress’s power to set debt limits.
The last option — respecting Congress’s taxing and spending powers while ignoring its debt limit — is the “least unconstitutional” option, Buchanan and Dorf argue. This judgment would no doubt be challenged in court, but it’s arguably less dramatic than the president unilaterally declaring the debt ceiling a violation of the 14th Amendment.
4) Issuing quasi-debt while the crisis plays out
Steven Schwarcz, a professor at Duke Law and expert on capital markets, has proposed getting around the debt ceiling by having the Treasury Department create a “special-purpose entity” to issue new securities, distinct from traditional Treasury bonds, that can pay for government expenditures. Because they’re not Treasury bonds, these securities would not be subject to the debt limit.
This may seem bizarre, but Schwarcz got the idea from state and municipal finance in the US; many states raise most of their debt with special-purpose entities, rather than by directly issuing bonds, often so they can get around their own state debt limits.
What a 2023 budget deal might look like
Ideally, Biden will use one of the above methods to evade the debt ceiling and prevent Kevin McCarthy and his caucus from using the threat of federal government default to extract policy concessions.
But these are all relatively dramatic steps, and it’s possible that Biden will, like Obama before him, demure and ultimately accept that he needs to bargain with McCarthy and agree to spending cuts to get a debt ceiling increase passed. If that happens, it’s worth considering what such a spending cut deal will look like.
Rep. Kevin McCarthy celebrates after being elected Speaker of the House on January 7.Win McNamee/Getty Images
President Joe Biden speaks in the Roosevelt Room at the White House on January 5.Drew Angerer/Getty Images
The best guide here is the 2011 Budget Control Act, the result of that year’s debt ceiling standoff. The Obama White House took a firm line against any deal that cut Social Security or Medicare without increasing taxes. For a brief time, House Speaker John Boehner seemed to be playing ball, agreeing to as much as $800 billion in revenue increases, but it soon became clear that he could not get his caucus to support major tax increases. Without the tax hikes, the Social Security and Medicare cuts that Obama was open to — like slowing cost-of-living adjustments for the former and raising the age for the latter to 67 — went off the table.
And while Republicans have ideological reasons to want to cut Social Security and Medicare, their older-than-average voting base, combined with those programs’ overwhelmingpopularity, also give them reasons to avoid cuts in this area.
So the ultimate 2011 deal kicked the can down the road. It included $917 billion in direct spending cuts, mostly implemented by capping “discretionary” spending, which includes defense programs and everything else the government does that isn’t a mandatory entitlement program like Social Security, food stamps, or veterans’ benefits.
The bill then mandated another $1.2 trillion in deficit reduction to be determined through a congressional committee (colloquially called “the supercommittee”). If the supercommittee failed to put together a package slashing $1.2 trillion through tax hikes or spending cuts, indiscriminate spending cuts would ensue through forced decreases in the caps on defense and non-defense discretionary spending. Unless Congress passed spending bills with totals below these new, even lower caps, a “sequestration” process forcing across-the-board cuts to every affected program would ensue.
The across-the-board cuts included as a backup were never meant to take effect. They were an enforcement mechanism meant to pressure Congress into making a deal, the equivalent of paying a guy from Craigslist to punch you if you don’t get your work done on deadline.
But the supercommittee failed, forcing those spending cuts. Because the deal took cuts to Social Security, Medicaid, and the beneficiary side of Medicare off the table, the toll on Americans was lighter than it could have been. (Medicare payments to providers were cut, though, which somestudies have found reduces quality of care received.) Further, Congress agreed in another deal at the end of 2012 to delay the sequestration cuts for two months, so they began on March 1, 2013. But they took effect then, as planned.
The consequences of the 2013 sequestration
The sequestration led to 7.7 percent across-the-board cuts to defense and 5.1 percent across-the-board cuts to domestic discretionary spending. Military operations funding fell by $17.1 billion, National Institutes of Health funding by $1.6 billion, nuclear weapons security by $903 million, border security and immigration enforcement by a combined $890 million, and on and on.
Perhaps worse, agency heads had little to no flexibility in distributing these cuts; every “program, project, and activity” had to be cut equally, and “activity” was defined to include things as small as a single buoy the government floated in the Chesapeake Bay. That buoy, somehow, had to be cut by 5 percent (in practice, that meant scraping 5 percent less bird poop off the buoy).
These across-the-board cuts, though, only came because Congress approved spending bills totaling more than the caps they set for themselves (again, assuming the cuts wouldn’t actually take effect). After 2013, Congress knew it had to pass spending bills that did abide by the caps, after which no across-the-board cuts would ensue. It simply had to make decisions about what spending it wanted to prioritize, subject to those limits. It also could, and occasionally did, change the caps, as in the 2013 and 2015 budget deals, which raised defense and non-defense spending caps in the short term, partially offsetting that with lower spending later on. The 2018 and 2019 budget deals under Trump increased the caps still further and barely included any offsets, driven largely by a Republican desire to restore defense spending.
Taking all these changes together, the Committee on a Responsible Federal Budget’s Goldwein told me, the Budget Control Act of 2011, the fruit of the debt ceiling crisis, resulted in $1.2 trillion or so in overall deficit reduction. This was less than the $2.1 trillion originally promised (due to the repeated deals which raised the budget caps), but it was still a sizable hit. Overall spending was substantially lower from 2011 until the Covid-19 pandemic hit (and threw the federal budget into general chaos) than previously planned.
So, what did this all mean for actual users of government services? For some, the impact was temporary. Head Start, the pre-K program for low-income children, kicked 57,000 kids off its rolls when the sequestration hit, kids who permanently lost access to the program. But the next year, funding was restored and stayed roughly on track for the rest of the decade. Some affected spending categories rose dramatically over this period, most notably health care for veterans, which members of Congress prioritized in appropriations bills.
Veterans’ health care funding grew dramatically, but every other category of non-defense discretionary spending fell after adjusting for inflation and population growth.Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
So what did suffer? The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities’ David Reich co-authored a category-by-category report and found that, between 2010 and 2021, every single category of non-defense discretionary spending besides veterans’ programs saw declines after adjusting for inflation and population growth. Economic security, health care, and scientific research programs were close to stagnant, falling by 4 percent or less. But funding for environmental protection and parks fell by 15 percent; general government operations by 26 percent; education and job training by 14 percent; diplomacy and foreign aid by 19 percent; agriculture, energy, and commerce by 19 percent.
Housing vouchers through the Section 8 program could not keep up with rents; the center estimated that between 2010 and 2017, voucher funding fell by 9 percent after adjusting for rent inflation, resulting in “significant decreases in the number of families that were being served over that time,” Peggy Bailey, the center’s vice president for housing and income security and a former senior adviser to HUD Secretary Marcia Fudge, told me last year.
A study from the American Association for the Advancement of Science found that aggregate research and development spending from the federal government was $200 billion lower due to the Budget Control Act; health research from the National Institutes of Health and the VA fell by over $7 billion a year relative to previous historical trends, while the National Science Foundation got almost $2 billion a year less.
This was all bad news for people interacting with government programs. The two biggest social assistance agencies in the US are the Social Security Administration (which administers old-age and disability payments) and the IRS, which administers tax credits that are crucial for reducing poverty. Adjusted for inflation, funding for the agencies fell by 13 and 19 percent between 2010 and 2021, respectively.
Perhaps the single worst category of cuts that took effect — given what followed — were to programs related to pandemic preparedness and effectiveness. As Reich and Katie Windham note, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s budget fell by 7 percent between 2010 and 2021, and its grants to state and local public health agencies fell by 20 percent. That almost certainly hampered America’s ability to anticipate and respond to pandemics like Covid-19, and almost certainly cost lives.
How will this play out?
In short: We don’t know.
For one thing, experts say there’s a huge amount of uncertainty about when the ceiling will be hit this year. July or August 2023 has been thrown about as a likely deadline, but the ceiling might not be hit until 2024 if tax revenues surpass expectations, allowing the government to pay its own way temporarily. While House Speaker Kevin McCarthy got his job by promising a fight on the debt ceiling, his majority is very narrow, meaning that six or more Republican defections could enable Democrats to pass a “clean” increase using a tool called a discharge petition, through which a majority can force a floor vote in the House even if leadership doesn’t want one. (This is an important plot point in the 2003 classic Legally Blonde 2: Red White & Blonde, our modern-day Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.)
Members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, including, from left, Reps. Dan Bishop, Andy Ogles, Chip Roy, and Scott Perry, were among those who demanded concessions from Speaker Kevin McCarthy regarding the debt ceiling before agreeing to vote to hand him the gavel.J. Scott Applewhite/AP
Personally, though, I’m steeling myself for a repeat of the 2011 budget deal, precisely because the dynamics that led to it narrowly focusing on a small sliver of the budget are still there. Republicans are if anything even more vehemently opposed to tax increases, and Democrats are equally vehemently opposed to tax hikes affecting all but the richest 1 percent or so of Americans. Social Security and Medicare are still hot potatoes, and while other “mandatory” programs like food stamps are less popular, Democrats have historically held firm against any cuts to them.
That leaves discretionary programs, both defense and non-defense, covering everything from the FBI to medical research to US embassies abroad. Those programs took a severe battering during the 2010s under the Budget Control Act, and there’s every reason to expect them to take a battering in whatever deal emerges in 2023. The consequences are not straightforward, but could weaken important parts of the government that have already been underfunded for a decade. And the odds of a showdown actually addressing the drivers of the long-run budget deficit — inadequate tax revenue, an aging population with growing health and pension bills — are basically zero.
The one thing debt ceiling fights never do is solve the debt issue.
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You've likely seen the advice about which vitamins can help us achieve certain health goals. For instance, there are vitamins to boost your energy and others that aid in hair growth. Since vitamins are so good for us, you might even assume that more is better. But with certain vitamins, there can be too much of a good thing. Some vitamins can build up in your system and lead to unwanted side effects like nausea and headaches. Read on to learn how to tell if you're overdosing on vitamins, including common side effects for popular vitamins.
Are you taking too many vitamins?
Is taking too many vitamins bad? Some people also ask questions like: Can you take too much magnesium? Or can you take too much biotin? The key fact is that vitamins can be either water-soluble or fat-soluble. Water-soluble vitamins dissolve in water. This means that they can dissolve safely and pass out of your system if you take too many or the body does not need them. Fat-soluble vitamins do not dissolve in water. With time, too many of these fat-soluble vitamins build up in your body because they can be easily absorbed into your body's tissue, which can lead to toxicity.
Getting too many vitamins through our diets is unlikely to be harmful. Most food has relatively low amounts of vitamins. For instance, a 100-gram serving of eggs has 540 international units (IU) of vitamin A. However, men can have 3,000 IU daily (or 900 mcg RAE) and women can have 2,333 IU per day (or 700 mcg RAE), according to the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Where vitamin dosing can get dangerous is when we start popping the highly concentrated supplements that may be delivering hundreds or even thousands of IUs per day, depending on how many individual vitamin supplements or what type of multivitamin we take.
Potential side effects to watch out for
Below is a list of popular vitamins. Read on to learn about which side effects can come from consuming too much of each vitamin.
Vitamin C
For decades, vitamin C has been touted as a way to prevent or cure colds. It might be easy to assume taking megadoses of it might even prevent illness. However, you can get too much vitamin C. While water-soluble, Mayo Clinic lists the side effects of vitamin C overdose as:
Vomiting
Diarrhea
Nausea
Heartburn
Stomach cramps
Headache
Vitamin B3
Also called niacin, the side effects of B3 overdose can include:
Itching
Rapid heartbeat
Nausea and vomiting
Severe skin flushing with dizziness
Abdominal pain
Diarrhea
Gout
Vitamin B6
Vitamin B6 may be also called pyridoxine. Its overdose side effects may be:
Having a lack of muscle control or coordination
Heartburn
Nausea
Sensitivity to sunlight
Painful skin lesions
Numbness
Less ability to sense pain or extreme temperature
Vitamin B9
This vitamin is also called folate or folic acid. Excess folic acid is excreted in the urine, according to the Mayo Clinic. However, high folate intake might mask vitamin B12 deficiency until the neurological effects are permanent. Sometimes doctors prescribe taking both B12 and folic acid supplements together.
However, other side effects of regular oral use may include:
Nausea
Bad taste
Loss of appetite
Confusion
Sleep pattern disturbance
Irritability
Vitamin A
Many people like supplementing with Vitamin A, since it's important for vision, cell division, immunity and growth. It also has natural antioxidant properties, so it may have cell-protecting attributes. However, it's fat-soluble so it can lead to issues with toxicity.
The Mayo Clinic states that a single large dose of over 200,000 IU may cause:
Vertigo
Vomiting
Nausea
Blurry Vision
Over 10,000 IU per day might cause:
Liver damage
Bone thinning
Diarrhea
Nausea
Skin irritation
Bone or joint pain
Birth defects
Headache
Vitamin D
Vitamin D toxicity usually comes from large doses of supplements, not exposure from the diet or sunlight, according to the Mayo Clinic. If you have vitamin D toxicity, also known as hypervitaminosis D, you may experience:
Nausea
Vomiting
Weakness
Frequent urination
Bone pain
Kidney issues, like having calcium stones
These side effects come from overdoses of Vitamin D causing a buildup of calcium in the bloodstream.
Vitamin E
Vitamin E is another popular vitamin with antioxidant properties, so it's easy to assume more means better. Vitamin E supplementation can come with the following side effects, and higher doses can increase the risk of these side effects:
Weakness
Headache
Fatigue
Blurred vision
Rash
Gonadal dysfunction
Increased concentration of creatine in urine
Nausea
Diarrhea
Intestinal cramps
How to take vitamins safely
Make sure that you are staying within the daily recommended doses for each vitamin supplement that you take. Factor in how much of the vitamin you get from daily food sources. The recommended daily intake for each major vitamin is:
Vitamin A
Men: 900 mcg
Women: 700 mcg
Vitamin B1
Men: 1.2 mg
Women: 1.1 mg
Vitamin B2
Men: 1.3 mg
Women: 1.1 mg
Vitamin B3
Men: 16 mg NE (niacin equivalents)
Women: 14 mg NE
Vitamin B5
Men: 5 mg
Women: 5 mg
Vitamin B6
Men: 1.3 mg
Women: 1.3 mg
Vitamin B7
Men: 30 mcg
Women: 30 mcg
Vitamin B9
Men: 400 mcg DFE (dietary folate equivalents)
Women: 400 mcg DFE
Vitamin B12
Men: 2.4 mcg
Women: 2.4 mcg
Vitamin C
Men: 90 mg
Women: 75 mg
Vitamin D
Men: 600 IU
Women: 600 IU
Vitamin E
Men: 15 mg
Women: 15 mg
Vitamin K
Men: 120 mcg
Women: 90 mcg
The information contained in this article is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as health or medical advice. Always consult a physician or other qualified health provider regarding any questions you may have about a medical condition or health objectives.
The San Diego County’s Department of Public Works (DPW) road division and the Office of Emergency Services remind residents to drive safely and be flood ready.
The National Weather Service is forecasting milder rain conditions in San Diego than the central and northern part of the state, but safety precautions always apply on wet roads.
The following 10 tips are important when driving in rainy conditions:
Slow down to avoid getting into an accident. Remember, it takes longer to stop when roads are wet. Allow yourself at least an extra 15 minutes or so to arrive at your destination to adjust for slower traffic.
Turn on your headlights to see better and make it easier for other drivers to see you. It’s the law.
Try to drive toward the middle lanes as water tends to gather in outside lanes.
Defog your windows for better visibility. Rain can cause windows to fog up. Along the same lines, check your windshield wipers preferably before it rains again and replace them as needed.
Avoid driving through deep water because it can affect your brakes. If you cannot avoid it, test your brakes afterward to make sure they’ve dried out and are working properly.
Give the cars in front of you extra distance. The spray from their vehicles — particularly from larger trucks and buses — can hamper your vision. And giving extra space to the guy in front of you also gives you more time to brake or adjust if you need to.
Keep calm, don’t oversteer or stomp on the breaks if you start to hydroplane or skid when your tires lose traction with the wet road. The Department of Motor Vehicles says keep the steering wheel straight and take your foot off the accelerator so your vehicle can slow down slowly.
Turn around, don’t drown. In heavy rains, never drive through a flooded roadway if you cannot see the pavement. Even a few inches of water running at the right velocity can sweep a car, and even a truck, and its occupants off the roadway and downstream. The same tip applies to trying to walk or swim across a flooded roadway.
Stay focused. Remember, it’s illegal, and dangerous, to try to text or use a hand-held cell phone when you’re driving.
Slow down for the cone zone if you see highway or road workers ahead or to your side. Watch out for DPW crews and equipment.
Bonus tip, if you have to travel to where you’ll have to drive in snow, keep up with the weather reports to see if tire chains are required. Be aware conditions on the ground can change rapidly. Also keep some extra safety equipment in your car.
Chain controls, road condition updates, and other safety advisories are posted on DPW’s Facebook and Twitter sites.
Off the roads, while this storm system is not expected to be excessive, residents may want to prepare and learn more about flood risks since floods are the most common natural disaster. The San Diego County Office of Emergency Services has flood ready information to lessen your risk.
DPW’s road division crews keep roads and motorists safe by removing road hazards, closing flooded roadways and plowing roads when bad weather strikes.
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