Using emergency telephones

There are emergency telephones along motorways. There are telephones that occur roughly once per mile along the motorway which are connected to the emergency services.

There are also blue and white market posts every 100 metres or so that let you know the direction of the nearest emergency telephone.

If you want to use these because for instance you've broken down then when you use the phone you get connected straight through to the police. You will need to let them know where you are - there is a number on the telephone box and they can then know precisely where you are in order to provide assistance if necessary.

Note that it is illegal to stop in the hard shoulder, unless it is an emergency. Occasionally with hard shoulders you will see it being used as a lane where is roadwords going on in the other lanes, but for general purposes you should stay out of them. They will often be full of rubber and pieces of tyre that have come off cars so are not great for your car to drive on either.

Related Articles...

driving theory test
What to do at a box junction
The box junction is quite common but despite this there are a whole wide range of ways in which different drivers interpret what they are supposed to do at them so you will see different behaviours...

Your ignition warning light
When you turn on the electrical circuits in your car, then the ignition warning light will come on: make sure that this does indeed happen. Once the engine itself is started, then the ignition...

What causes accidents: tailgating
Driving too close to a vehicle is dangerous for the very simple reason that you have too little time to react should something unexpected happen. And when you consider how many road journeys there...

Using the foot controls in an automatic
When driving an automatic car, there is one less pedal to think about: there is no clutch pedal so the ABC of accelerator, brake, clutch becomes instead simply accelerator and brake. That's...

Reading or hearing difficulties and the theory test
If you have some sort of reading difficulty, which might be but is not limited to dyslexia, then do not panic. You can get the questions read to you in English or Welsh (or indeed if you want the...

Driving Theory Test
Until relatively recently in driving history, there was no theory test. From the time the first person passed a driving test in the UK in 1935 through to 1996, there was no separate theory test. ...

The ABC of dealing with casualties
The ABC refers to how to treat casualties if you are involved in an accident but not injured, or indeed if you are at the scene where an accident occurs. The A refers to the word airway. This...

Road conditions: driving in rain
Driving in rain is something that you can be sure you will experience regularly once you are an actual driver, although depending where you live and the time of year you learnt, you might have...

Your ignition system explained
The ignition system is of course an essential part of the technology that allows cars to function, and without it you would not get very far. But what does it do? Well the system provides the...

What to do if you breakdown at a level crossing
Driving is potentially dangerous, but it is important not to worry about things that could happen when driving but at the same time you should know what to do in the unlikely event that something...


Back to home page of driving theory test questions