When should you get out of a broken down car? How dangerous are hard shoulders?

Problem
Your car breaks down or is hit. Should you get out?

When my car was hit in the slow lane of the M4 it shot across the middle and fast lanes, hit the barrier, revolved and stopped. A lorry driver ran up and told me to get out of the car. The right-hand doors were not operating. He came round to the front passenger and helped me out.

There's nowhere to stand along the barrier. I thought we might be hit, by something hitting the car stopped behind me pushing that car forward, like a row of dominos falling.

I asked him to move his truck across the fast lane.

He ran back and moved it diagonally across all three lanes. (Nobody was going anywhere forwards.  Cars could not overtake the accident. The other damaged car was stopped in the slow lane. Parts of my car were in the central lane.)

Later I learned that it is standard practice to move a large vehicle diagonally to block all lanes. It is big so its a barrier to smaller cards which can't shunt it. It's double height and can be seen. The fact that's it is diagonal blocks more than one lane. The fact that it can be seen from a distance as diagonal tells you that you cannot go forward and that something is amiss. 

I had been wondering what the statistics were on accidents.


'... since 2011, more than 20 people have been killed or seriously injured on hard shoulders.'

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5290983/Smart-motorway-horror-sees-lorry-crash-familys-car.html#ixzz54iXKntOv
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