Motorway breakdown in a tunnel approach
You are on a two-lane motorway carriageway at 110 km/h when the engine loses power and a red warning light appears. You manage to coast onto the hard shoulder about 300 m before a tunnel portal. It is dusk, traffic is moderate, and lorries are passing in the right-hand lane. Your passengers include a child and an elderly person. You have a warning triangle, a high-visibility vest (one only) and a first-aid kit. Your mobile phone shows two bars. The nearest emergency call point is about 150 m back along the shoulder.
1. Set out, in order, what you and your passengers do in the first few minutes.
Read the worked answer
First, stop as far right on the hard shoulder as possible, wheels straight, handbrake on, hazard lights on, and if it is dark switch on side lights. Second, get everyone out on the side away from traffic - through the doors on the right, never into the traffic lane - and lead them behind the crash barrier or up the embankment to a safe waiting point well away from the carriageway. The child and the elderly person go first and are kept together. Third, put on the high-visibility vest before walking near the carriageway, and place the warning triangle only if it is genuinely safe: on a motorway this is often too dangerous, and the priority is personal safety and calling for help. Fourth, call for help - use the emergency call point 150 m back if that route is safe, or dial the emergency number from the barrier. Give the location, direction of travel, tunnel proximity and whether anyone is hurt. Do not attempt repairs on the hard shoulder.
2. Why does the nearby tunnel change your plan, and what do you tell the emergency operator?
Read the worked answer
A tunnel portal concentrates risk: approaching drivers have limited forward view into the darker opening, lorries cannot swerve easily, and a stationary vehicle 300 m before the portal sits in the zone where drivers are adjusting to the change in light. If the vehicle cannot be moved and the situation worsens, a tunnel has its own emergency procedures - emergency niches, SOS telephones and evacuation routes - but you should not push a dead car into a tunnel. I tell the operator: the motorway and direction, the approximate distance before the tunnel portal, the lane and shoulder position, that the car is immobile with hazard lights on, the number of people including a child and an elderly person, that everyone is out behind the barrier, and a callback number. I stay on the line until told to hang up, and I keep the group together behind the barrier, facing traffic, ready to move further away if a vehicle drifts onto the shoulder.