I think there are two aspects of this story that can be beneficial examining: how you can prepare to survive this type of situation, and how you can avoid ending up in this type of situation.

Regarding this first aspect, it seems prudent to prepare for this as has been discussed here and elswhere. Dressing for the weather, not the car ride. Having a good winter emergency kit, methods for making fire, etc. There can be freak occurrances where you could find yourself in this situation despite your good decision making; and, perhaps more likely, we are all capable of making bad decisions no matter how much of this stuff we know.

The second aspect, avoidance, is where I think it especially makes sense for us to continue looking at current events eventhough we've discussed very similar cases in the past. The main thing worth looking at here, from my perspective at least, is the human aspect of the decision making process that led to the disaster.

In retrospect, Davis clearly sees the error he made:

"I should have turned around right then and gone about 5 miles back to where I had turned in," Davis said. "So, I goofed right there."

I wouldn't be surprised if a man like Davis, given his future as a hypothetical situation would have made the right choices to avoid disaster. There's every possibility he could have seen the Kim situation retold on TV and easily identified what went wrong and what Kim should have done.

But I think things often look much different when we are in the driver's seat.

Looking at the brief description from the linked article we see a glimpse of the progressive, worsening nature of Davis' situation:

The couple drove their Buick for miles up the forest road, which became more and more impassable the farther they traveled. The car bottomed out several times, punching a hole in the transmission oil pan and making it impossible to drive anymore.

I can see how this could have played out - we're often driven to overcome adversity rather than give into it. Maybe it's a combination of determination, optimism, pride and, heck, even testosterone that motivates us to believe we can overcome whatever is being thrown at us.

I know I'm not the only guy who when faced with things like brutal weather and dicey road conditions has reacted with the determination that I would not allow the weather to stop me; that I would overcome and not allow defeat.

Maybe by seeing these events come to pass and examining the details we will be reminded when and if our day comes that overcoming the obstacles in our path is not the only answer. Maybe under our confidence we will be reminded that other confident men took this path to the detriment of their family. Maybe that will help us make better decisions and stay out of the headlines.