By admin 
PHOENIX (AZFamily) — As dust storms rolled through the Valley on Sunday and Monday evenings, many drivers found themselves behind the wheel during the monsoon storms.
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“It’s really dangerous to try and navigate those conditions,” said Kelly Mo with the Arizona Department of Transportation.
From the heavy rain that can make roads slick to the dust storms that can make the road ahead nearly disappear, drivers during an intense monsoon can find themselves in difficult situations to manage.
These are tips from the Arizona Department of Public Safety on what to do if you find yourself in that situation:
- Immediately check traffic around your vehicle (front, back, sides) and begin slowing down.
- Completely exit the highway if you can. Do not wait until poor visibility to pull off the roadway.
- DO NOT STOP in a travel lane or emergency lane. Pull completely off the paved portion of the roadway.
- Turn off all vehicle lights. You don’t want others to follow you by using your lights as a guide.
- Set your emergency brake and take your foot off the brake
- Stay in your vehicle with your seatbelt buckled.
- Be patient. Wait for the storm to pass.
“You don’t want any lights on your vehicle on because we don’t want a vehicle that’s coming up from behind you to mistake your vehicle as a beacon and then possibly crash into that vehicle,” explained Mo.
At DrivingMBA’s Scottsdale location, 16-year-old Colleen Brousseau is getting a chance to test her driving skills inside a monsoon storm through the driving school’s simulator.
“It’s definitely really scary just because, like, you can’t see what’s around you,” she said. “You don’t know if people can see you. So, you just always have to be on high alert.”
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Brousseau, an Arizona native, has been in a car during a monsoon before, but never behind the wheel.
She says that going through the simulator, mimicking driving in a monsoon in both city and highway settings, will give her much-needed lessons for when she ultimately has to navigate her first monsoon storm behind the wheel.
“You just have to remember what you’ve learned, and this is going to help me because we have a lot of them in Arizona,” said Brousseau.
The first rule of driving through a dust storm is to avoid getting in that situation in the first place. Before you hit the road, get an updated forecast either on the air from the AZFamily First Alert weather team or by using the First Alert Weather App.
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