Hard shoulder

The hard shoulder is not a lane. It is there so a vehicle in trouble can get out of the traffic stream, and so the emergency services can reach it. Stopping on it for anything that is not an emergency — a phone call, a map, a stretch — is both an offence and genuinely dangerous, because vehicles alongside you are passing at national speed limit.

If you do have to use it, get as far left as you can, switch on your hazard warning lights, and leave by the nearside door. The standard advice is to get up the bank behind the barrier and wait there rather than in the vehicle, because a stationary vehicle on the hard shoulder is the thing other drivers hit.

On a smart motorway the picture changes: the hard shoulder may be opened as a running lane, and the overhead signs tell you which. A red X means the lane is closed and you must not drive in it — there may be a broken-down vehicle or a crew out of sight beyond the next bend.