Motorway Blue Light Driving

[Noddy]

I had an hours blue light run the other day that took me on 3 different motorways.  The job wasn’t on a motorway so I was just using them to get from A to B. I was in a car by the way.

Traffic was ok for the first 30 odd miles with vehicles ahead shifting out of lane 3 to let me pass but I got caught in heavy traffic with around 10 miles to go to my exit. 

With all 3 lanes heavy with traffic, those in lane 3 were starting to pull right into the central reservation rather than move to lane 2.

I found myself deciding whether to stick with it or move over to the hard shoulder.  In the end I did move over and used the shoulder for about a mile before rejoining until my exit but didn’t like being there.

For those who use motorways, when do you leave the carriageway and use the hardshoulder, when the traffic hasn’t actually stopped but is moving very slowly? 

[Ian]

Yes.

When I was on the trucks (Junctions 7-9 M1) were a regular and I would ask the driver to use the hard shoulder as soon as the traffic had nearly stopped, they would always travel at no more than 30mph down the hard shoulder . When we got down on to the M25 a lot of the Hertfordshire stretch is " all lanes running" so there isn't a hard shoulder to be used, so we would move over to lanes 1& 2 and try to push through there.