With cars travelling at high speeds, breaking down on a motorway can be a dangerous and stressful situation. That’s why it’s important to follow advice designed to keep you and your passengers safe.
We’ve put together some safety precautions to follow and some tips on what to do if you run into trouble on the road.
Staying safe on the motorway
National Highways recommends taking these simple steps to try and prevent any problems before they happen:
- Stay within the speed limit
- Keep left unless you need to overtake
- Check your car is safe and roadworthy before you set off
- Plan regular breaks
- Don’t drive when you’re tired
What to do if you break down
Sometimes cars just break down, and no amount of planning or prevention can stop it from happening.
If you’re at the wheel and you notice a problem with your car, leave the motorway at the next exit or pull into a service area if you can.
If you can’t get off the carriageway, follow National Highways’ three-step advice to keep you and other road users safe:
1. Go left
- Move into the left lane and pull into an emergency area or the hard shoulder.
- Stop as far left as you can, leaving enough space to get out of your car safely.
- Turn on your hazard warning lights and side lights if it’s dark or visibility is poor.
2. Get safe
- If it’s safe, exit your car on the side away from the traffic and get behind the safety barrier.
- Stay away from the carriageway and keep children under control.
- Don’t stand where your car could be forced into you if it gets hit by another vehicle.
3. Get help
- If you’ve stopped in an emergency area, layby, or hard shoulder, use the free emergency telephone or your mobile to call National Highways on 0300 123 5000.
- Contact your breakdown recovery provider.
- Face the traffic when you speak so you can spot any vehicles or debris coming towards you.
It’s important to remember, if it’s not safe to get out of your car, stay where you are and call the police on 999.
What if you break down on a smart motorway?
First things first – what’s a smart motorway?
A smart motorway is a section of a motorway that uses technology and traffic management to increase capacity and reduce congestion. They typically use the hard shoulder as an extra lane during busy periods and variable speed limits to manage traffic flow.
If you break down on a smart motorway, there might not be a hard shoulder to pull into, so look out for orange ‘Emergency Refuge Areas’ to stop in.
The safety steps are similar to those if you break down on a normal motorway.
If you can’t get to an emergency area:
- Stay in your car
- Keep your hazard lights and seatbelts on
- Call 999 for help
If you can safely make it to an emergency area:
- Turn on your hazard lights (and sidelights if visibility is poor).
- Make sure you and any passengers leave the vehicle, using the left doors to avoid the busy road.
- If possible, get everyone well behind a safety barrier.
- Call your local highways agency or the police and tell them what’s happened. There should be a phone in the Emergency Refuge Area that will get you through to them directly.
- Contact your breakdown cover provider.
Using emergency phones
There are 8,551 emergency roadside telephones across the UK. And, yes, they do work!
More than 50% of drivers think they don’t work but that isn’t the case. In fact, they’re regularly maintained to make sure if you need one, you can get help quickly.
Emergency roadside telephones are located every mile along motorways. If you need one, look out for the marker posts every 100m along the hard shoulder.
You can use an emergency phone to connect directly to traffic control centres or police control rooms – usually within 10 seconds. They can pinpoint where you are and send help.
If you need to use an emergency phone to call for help, take care when getting to it and stay behind the safety barrier.
