Have any of you used the motorway turnoffs labelled "Motorway Works Unit" for emergency halts?

 

Of course, one shouldn't. They are usually labelled "Authorized vehicles only" or somesuch, but a few days ago I turned off onto one of these while driving north on the M11. My partially disabled wife was suddenly in desperate need to pee (we had been held up for an hour and a half in a traffic jam earlier on) and stopping on the hard shoulder is known to be dangerous. There are two Works Units on the M11 just north of the Bishops Stortford exit 8. One is about 7 miles north of J8 (Driver Location: M11-59.5) where the motorway crosses the B1038. Google maps shows that this turnoff actually goes to the B1038. The one we used was 4 to 5 miles further north (Driver Location: M11-67.5) and a little lane ran alongside the motorway but nicely screened by bushes and trees. Blessed relief!

 

Fortunately there was nobody about to give us a bo***cking, but I would have argued that it was a genuine emergency and safer than stopping on the hard shoulder. Admittedly, re-joining the M11 from one of these turnoffs is tricky: one does not have a decent slip road to accelerate to motorway speeds, so one must wait until there is a good safe gap in the traffic before rejoining.

 

Has anyone else used one in an emergency? For example, a car-sick child about to puke, a bursting bladder, or even some grit in the eye that needs some attention to get it out. It might be useful to have a (totally unauthorised) map or guide to the location of these Units, and what to say when some big bloke in a high-vis vest & helmet tells you that you shouldn't be there at all ....

I used to be very tempted to bring a large bolt cutter to use a "construction phase site access" that was retained as emergency services entry point on the nth bound side of the M8 Cork Motorway as a short cut on my way home to my parents house, it wouldve shaved about 20mins off the journey

 

 

We were on the way to LHR fm Brighton and got stuck in a giant tailback and in desperation did a bit of hard shoulder mooning ......at least that’s what I keep reminding her of 😂.