Broken down on the motorway: the first five minutes
Get the vehicle as far onto the hard shoulder as it will go, hazards on, and put the high-visibility vest on before you open the door — not after. Leave the cab on the verge side, never the traffic side, get yourself behind the barrier, and only then place the warning triangle and call. The order matters: almost every serious injury at a roadside breakdown happens in the two minutes between stopping and being seen.
Before you open the door
The vest lives in the cab for a reason. Putting it on outside means the first vehicles to pass you do so while you are still dark, and on a motorway at night that is the most dangerous moment of the whole event.
- Hazards on the moment you know you are stopping, not once you have stopped.
- Get as far right as the vehicle will still roll — a metre of hard shoulder is worth more than a perfect parking job in a live lane.
- Vest on inside the cab. Torch in your pocket if it is dark.
- Out on the verge side. If the passenger door is blocked, climb across rather than stepping into a lane.
- Get behind the barrier before you do anything else. The truck is replaceable.
The warning triangle
The required distance differs from country to country, and vehicles over 3.5 tonnes or with a trailer are often required to carry two. Follow the rule where you are — but the principle is the same everywhere: far enough back that a driver at motorway speed has time to react, and before the crest or the bend, not after it.
Walk to it facing the traffic, on the far side of the barrier wherever the ground allows. Carry the triangle in front of you so it is doing its job while you are still walking. Never turn your back on the lane.
What to say when you call
A mechanic answers, so give the information a mechanic needs. In this order it takes twenty seconds and decides which parts get loaded before anyone sets off:
- Where: motorway number, direction of travel, nearest kilometre marker or the last exit you passed. "A1 towards Maribor, just past Trojane" is a position. "Near Celje" is not.
- What: make, model, and whether there is a trailer.
- Symptom, in the order it happened: what warning came up, what noise, what changed. "Air warning, then it would not build pressure" tells a mechanic more than "it broke down".
- Whether the vehicle is safe where it stands, and whether you are out of the lane.
What not to do
Do not stand between the truck and the traffic. That strip is where a vehicle that clips the trailer will put you, and it is the single most common way a roadside breakdown turns into something worse.
Do not start a repair in a live lane, whatever it is. If the fault is in a position that cannot be reached from the verge side, that is a reason to wait, not a reason to hurry.
Do not keep trying to restart or to limp on once a warning says otherwise. A truck in limp mode that is still moving is a truck that will stop somewhere less convenient — often on a bend, often at the top of a climb, occasionally in a tunnel.
Related
Should I call first or place the triangle first?
Triangle first, then call — but only once you are out of the lane and behind the barrier. The triangle protects you and everyone else while you are standing there; the call does not. The exception is if someone is hurt, in which case emergency services come before anything.
The truck still drives, but a warning is on. Do I carry on to the next services?
It depends entirely on which warning. Anything to do with brakes, air pressure or steering means stop at the first safe place, not the next services. Engine and emissions warnings usually allow a short controlled run to somewhere safer, but not a continued shift. If you are not sure which kind you have, call and describe it — that is a thirty-second conversation and it is what the number is for.
How long does the tachograph keep running while I wait?
Waiting at a breakdown is normally recorded as other work or availability rather than driving, so it does not consume driving time — but it does consume the working day. That is the practical reason to give a precise position on the first call: every minute a mechanic spends looking for you is a minute off your shift, and the difference between "A1 towards Maribor just past Trojane" and "somewhere near Celje" can be half an hour.
Truck stopped right now?
A mechanic answers, day or night, and you get an arrival time before you hang up.