www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/news/10982055/I-thought-the-car-was-on-fire-bizarre-reasons-for-stopping-on-the-motorway.html
Have you ever stopped illegally on the hard shoulder?
I've only ever done so for breakdowns (only too frequent in the early days with my Morris Shonky, although I loved it to bits, as it were.)
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It used to be commonplace to stop on the hard shoulder in the early days of motorways.
Children needing a pee or to be sick was the commonest reason.
Stopping briefly to swap drivers was another - safer than sliding sideways across a bench seat.
My brother in law once sold his old car to a hitchhiker, took the cash, and was dropped off just by the next slip road.
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I'm surprised so many do so. But then I wonder how dangerous it really is? Looking at the numbers it's about a dozen a day that they know of, plus all the genuine reasons to stop. I wonder how many end up in accidents.
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>> Have you ever stopped illegally on the hard shoulder?
No. Only three legal stops IIRC too. Two were just breakdowns.
Third time about 5 years ago was memorable but embarrassing. I was on the way south on a crowded M40 on a Sunday evening, with a friend towing a car trailer with an historic Lola sports car like this goo.gl/Il6dRT on it.
Suddenly he exited lane two, finding a gap in lane one and pulling up smartly on the hard shoulder.
He had seen a piece of bodywork flying off the trailered car, actually the engine cover, a piece of fibreglass about 4 feet x 5 feet.
We tramped back down the hard shoulder expecting at best to find a million pieces of fibreglass, and mightily relieved to see we hadn't caused a pile up.
The bodywork was lodged under the armco in the central reservation, corners bashed but in one piece. I persuaded the joyful owner not to dash across 3 lanes of fast traffic to retrieve it, and used an emergency phone to call it in, not knowing what to expect.
10 minutes later, the carriageway was empty. In the distance was a blaze of headlights, moving slowly towards us. The lead car was the Highways Agency Shogun, with the "DO NOT PASS" sign lit in the back window.
With the traffic soon stationary, supervised by the Highways Officers we sheepishly made our way through the parked masses and got the panel back. They released the presumably cursing horde and stuck around until we had it properly secured.
I won't hear a word against the Wombles.
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I was expecting that one to be you getting prosecuted for "undue care and attention vis-a-vis affixation of movable object as per Queen's regulation 52a sub para 13", so it was good to see the ending.
Reminded me of when I got stuck in the snow on the roadside, really bad day, so AA were saying eight hours, getting dark, and we were as miserable and stuck as could be. Police car turned up, chap hopped out and asked what was up, then his mate held up oncoming traffic and he pushed the car out whilst I steered. Cheery wave and they were away. Bless.
That was about 1979/80 though; these days they wouldn't be there to see us.
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Nope.
Drives me nuts around Heathrow because of all the minicabs parked up waiting for their fares. And foreign registered lorries hiding under bridges for a nap.
Must be quite rare to break down completely nowadays (runflats, increased reliability etc).
Would you change your own tyre on the motorway? I wouldn't, it's what I pay the AA for.
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>> Would you change your own tyre on the motorway? I wouldn't, it's what I pay
>> the AA for.
No. Too dangerous, family under instructions not to do it either.
In a safe place I'd do it myself to save waiting.
Son had a flat on the M1 in the contraflow. He managed to get through the cones into the 'works' area and would have changed it but they insisted on carting him off to the services. At least it was free.
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Anecdote on another forum yesterday about someone whose new car doesn't come with a spare, has no space for a spare, manufacturer won't even sell him a spare to stow in the back. Can of gunk or nothing.
The inevitable happened. Large nail hole, gunk wouldn't fix it. Tow truck to tyre place with all the hanging about, luckily they were open so new tyre at £150 odd, new can of gunk at £54, but "not in stock sir, three day wait".
Not a happy bunny. I've used my spare wheel twice in the last year and wouldn't be delighted at all not to have one.
Last edited by: Crankcase on Tue 22 Jul 14 at 13:34
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>> Son had a flat on the M1 in the contraflow.
Blimey, I know there's a shortage of housing for first time buyers but still....
:-)
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>>
>> >> Son had a flat on the M1 in the contraflow.
>>
>> Blimey, I know there's a shortage of housing for first time buyers but still....
>> :-)
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This one?
www.independent.ie/world-news/asia-pacific/fivestorey-house-in-middle-of-motorway-in-china-is-demolished-28942780.html
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>> >> He managed to get through
>> the cones into the 'works' area and would have changed it but
>>
I did that some years ago with an old caravan. A tyre disintegrated and I had no spare.
I parked it in the deserted works area, then set off with the wheel to find a tyre place.
Returning on the other carriageway we could see the caravan, still there, no one around, so hurried on to the roundabout to double back.
It must have been there for about 2 hours, as it took several tries to find a stockist for the old tyre size. I half expected to find the caravan cordoned off, blown up, or hauled away, and a terrorist enquiry under way, but all was still quiet. We quickly hooked up and escaped.
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>> find a stockist for the old tyre size. I half expected to find the caravan
>> cordoned off, blown up, or hauled away, and a terrorist enquiry under way, but all
>> was still quiet. We quickly hooked up and escaped.
It had however been used as a bog by 500 navvies....
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The closest to an illegal stop was under a bridge to raise the hood on the 4/4.
A few genuine stops for mechanical maladies and the most recent I fixed in about a minute and then carried on.
The one time I stopped for an accident, the view round the motorway corner was a bit poor (oddly tight bend on the M8) so I put the 4/4 up the bank. Policeman was a bit surprised I wasn't stuck, but part of my job then involved getting totally unsuitable estate cars up hillside tracks.
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It isn't actually that dangerous stopping on the hard shoulder believe it or believe it not. Very very few vehicles get hit when they are parked on the hard shoulder, it is more dangerous to pull up on the side of a fast A road or a dual carriageway in fact.
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>> It isn't actually that dangerous stopping on the hard shoulder believe it or believe it
>> not.
I dont. I believe it is a very dangerous place to be indeed.
>> it is more dangerous to pull up on the side of a fast A road
>> or a dual carriageway in fact.
It may be dangerous, probably very dangerous. It may be more dangerous than the motorway hard shoulder, but none of that makes a motorway hard shoulder not dangerous.
Last edited by: Zero on Wed 23 Jul 14 at 16:33
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The last time I drove from Paris to the tunnel I saw 2 hard shoulder collisions in just 2.5 hours, where a stationary vehicle was hit whilst on the hard shoulder. And the service station had 4 motorway service vans (Renault Masters) that had been hit spectacularly hard up the backside, presumably whilst on the hard should er to warn of incidents ahead. They were about half their original length!
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Around 1 in 10 motorway fatalities occur on the hard shoulder IIRC.
This is a brilliant opportunity to misuse statistics.
Motorways are safe, fatalities are on a scale of 1 per 100m vehicle kilometres.
You are a tenth as likely to be killed on the hard shoulder as you are when you are driving on the carriageway.
Ergo, the hard shoulder is even safer, right?
On the other hand...
If on average drivers spend 1000 x as many hours on the carriageway than they do on the hard shoulder, then for the same risk per hour you would expect the hard shoulder fatalities to be 0.1% of the carriageway rate, not c. 11%.
On that basis, for every hour you spend on the hard shoulder you are about 10,000 more likely to be killed than you would be driving on the motorway for that hour.
That seems good enough reason to bail out and send for the breakdown service if you have a puncture and you can't get right off the road.
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Illegal motorway stops - Cliff Pope
