Protect first, above all

This walk-through contains the answers. It is here to read the situation without playing it, to print it, and to keep the page useful without JavaScript.

Scene 1 · Opening

23.05, motorway, it has been raining since Auxerre. A warning light comes on, the engine loses all its power at once.

You have time to pull over onto the hard shoulder, as far right as you can get. Three lanes keep running to your left, at a hundred and thirty.

Scene 2 · Being seen

The car has stopped, engine off, in the dark. Behind you the bend stops anyone seeing you from a distance.

The hi-vis jacket is in the glovebox.

What do you do first?

• Right move : I put the hazard lights on.
  Signal, then get kitted out, then get out : Put the vehicle on the hard shoulder, as far right as you can, and show you are there by putting the hazard lights on. That is the first line of the official guidance, and it comes before everything else.
• Mistake : I get straight out to see what is smoking under the bonnet.
  You got out invisible, onto a hard shoulder : Before you leave a vehicle that has stopped, you put your high-visibility jacket on. At night, in the rain, on a bend, a person on foot with no jacket does not exist for the driver coming round at a hundred and thirty.
• Not the best choice : I open the boot and get the warning triangle out to set it up thirty metres behind.
  The triangle, yes, but not first : The ministry page this case cites puts these actions in an order: show you are there by putting the hazard lights on, then, before you leave a vehicle that has stopped, put your high-visibility jacket on and then position your warning triangle. You have just opened the boot with no hazard lights and no jacket. And the same page adds the instruction that governs all the rest: do not stay on the hard shoulder yourself, get behind the crash barrier, well behind the car, on the side the traffic comes from.

Scene 3 · Getting out

The two orange lights are flashing. The jacket is on your shoulders, inside the car, before you have opened a door.

All that is left is choosing which side you get out on.

How do you get out?

• Right move : I get out on the right, the side facing the crash barrier, never the traffic side.
  On the side where nothing is moving : The ministry puts the jacket on before the door opens. And the fire and rescue federation says which way you get out: get the passengers to safety outside the vehicle, leaving by the doors least exposed to danger, and stand behind the safety barriers where there are any. Two actions that cost nothing and that remove the biggest risk of the evening.
• Mistake : I get out on the driver's side, it is quicker, I will be careful.
  You have opened a door into the inside lane : Being careful does not undo a door opened into moving traffic, or a foot put down beyond the hard shoulder. The fire and rescue federation writes it down: leave by the doors least exposed to danger. The barrier side is the only one that does not put you in the traffic.
• Mistake : I stay in the car with my belt on and wait for help in the dry.
  A car is not shelter on a hard shoulder : Do not stay on the hard shoulder yourself, EVEN INSIDE THE VEHICLE. That is how the official guidance puts it, because the hard shoulder is exactly where lorries end up.

Scene 4 · Somewhere safe

You are outside, in the jacket, standing by the front right wing. That is still the worst place on the motorway.

The crash barrier is two steps away. Behind it, a bank of wet grass.

Where do you put yourself?

• Right move : I go behind the crash barrier and move back, behind the car, on the side the traffic comes from.
  Behind the barrier, well behind the car : That is the guidance, word for word. Behind the car, on the side the traffic comes from, because if a vehicle hits your car everything will be thrown forwards. The metal between you and the traffic is the only real shelter on a motorway verge.
• Mistake : I stand in front of my car to wave drivers down.
  You have put yourself between the traffic and an obstacle : Nobody asks a broken-down driver to direct traffic. What they are asked to do is not to stay on the hard shoulder and to get behind the crash barrier, behind the car.
• Mistake : I sit on the crash barrier, that way I will see the recovery truck coming.
  Sitting on the barrier, you are still on the wrong side of it : The guidance says BEHIND the barrier. Sitting on it, your legs and your back are still in the line of travel, and anything that strikes the rail takes you with it.

Scene 5 · Making the call

You are behind the barrier, in the jacket, out of the traffic. An orange post is visible a hundred metres back down the road, behind the rail.

Your phone is in your pocket.

Timer: 40 seconds.

How do you call?

• Right move : I walk up to the roadside emergency phone, behind the barrier, and pick up the handset.
  The post already knows where you are : On motorways, expressways and in tunnels, roadside emergency phones stand every 2 km and work 24 hours a day. The call is free and located, and it puts you through to the safety control room: you have no sign to hunt for in the dark to say where you are.
• Mistake : I call from my mobile, it is simpler, and I do not have to move.
  “Which kilometre marker are you at?” : A mobile is not forbidden: help is reached by dialling 18 or 112 from a landline or a mobile, and if it were all you had, you would call with it. Only there is a roadside phone right there, a hundred metres away, on the right side of the rail: the call is free, located, and it lands in the safety control room. From your mobile it is up to you to describe the exact spot, the name of the road and the direction of travel, at night, in the rain.
• Mistake : I go back to the car for my charger, my phone is on 3 %.
  You have gone back into the place you had just left : Once you are behind the barrier, you do not go back. The roadside phone needs neither battery nor signal, and it is on the right side of the rail.

Scene 6 · Waiting

The post told you a recovery truck is coming. All that is left is doing nothing, properly.

Twenty minutes to get through. What do you do?

• Right move : I stay behind the barrier, in the jacket, behind the car, and I wait.
  Doing nothing is the right move here : A car that can be seen, a driver who can be seen and is out of the traffic, an alert raised from a located post. There is nothing left to improve: there are only ways to ruin it.
• Mistake : I get back in the car, it is raining and it is cold.
  Twenty minutes sitting in the target : Do not stay on the hard shoulder, even inside the vehicle. Being wet has never killed anyone on a motorway. What kills is sitting still in the line of travel.
• Mistake : I cross over to reach the services I saw a kilometre back.
  You never cross a motorway : Nothing in the guidance allows you to walk on the carriageway or to cross it. The recovery truck comes to your car: that is where you have to be, but behind the rail.

Scene 7 · The recovery driver

Yellow lights turn in the distance, then pull in behind your car. A man in a hi-vis jacket gets down and looks around for you.

He finds you straight away, because you are the only yellow thing on the bank.

Nobody was hurt tonight. There is no story to tell, and that is exactly what we were after.