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With winter here, it's essential to ensure that your car is fully prepared. Indeed, extreme weather conditions such as snow or ice can make for dangerous driving and, without the right preparation, you're at a much higher risk of being involved in an accident or of experiencing problems with your vehicle.

Servicing your car is really important. Many garages provide all-inclusive winter services, so it can pay to take your car in for a check before the bad weather sets in. Checking that your car's brake fluid, engine coolant and oil levels are correct is also vital.

Your car's lights are another important factor and, as such, you should make sure they're in full working order, clean and not damaged. Keeping spare bulbs in the glove box is a good idea and will prevent you from having to drive without lights, should a bulb blow.

Additionally, replacing damaged or worn windscreen wipers will help to keep the windscreen free of debris, as will regularly topping up your screen wash, which should have appropriate anti-freeze in it.

Furthermore, making sure your tyres are in good condition is essential. They should be at the correct tyre pressure ' your driver's manual will provide you with this ' and the tread should be within the legal minimum requirement of 1.6 mm. Not only will properly maintained tyres help to keep your car grip the road, but if they're properly inflated, they should also help to save you money on fuel costs.

Because your car will be using more lighting and heating during the winter months, its battery needs to be fully charged. Consequently, keep an eye out for warning signs that it's low and always ensure that you turn off all lights before leaving your car.

While it's crucial to take precautions, it's an unfortunate fact that accidents can and do happen, especially when there's snow, ice or water on the roads. Therefore, it's important to have an adequate level of car insurance, which can help to protect you should an accident happen. In addition to covering you for any damage you cause to a third party, a good insurance policy could also provide you with breakdown cover.

This basically means that you can take advantage of such things as roadside assistance and recovery of your car to a garage, both of which could be very beneficial if you find yourself knee deep in a snowdrift, for example. There are thousands of different