Quote from RiseAgainstMe! :

I get that. I wasn't talking about the rules of the lane. I was saying that it was more complicated because there doesn't seem to be any benefit to that lane actually existing in the first place.

I don't know about you, but when you add a lane and receive no additional benefit from it, or seemingly it causes issues, then that's a system that's more complicated than it needs to be.

It's somewhere to park if your car breaks down, and it allows emergency vehicles to get to accidents without being blocked.

Quote from Intrepid :

It's somewhere to park if your car breaks down, and it allows emergency vehicles to get to accidents without being blocked.

Yes, I get that. Except apparently it doesn't allow emergency vehicles to get to accidents from the accounts here.

We have an area for the same purpose, but it's not designated as a lane at all. It's not part of the road. This way people don't try to do what happens in this video, and the emergency vehicle is free.

Quote from RiseAgainstMe! :

Yes, I get that. Except apparently it doesn't allow emergency vehicles to get to accidents from the accounts here.

We have an area for the same purpose, but it's not designated as a lane at all. It's not part of the road. This way people don't try to do what happens in this video, and the emergency vehicle is free.

What happens in this video is quite rare. It's just dumb idiots.

Couple of things to mention.

It's not called the "emergency lane", it's the hard shoulder.

The US typically has lots of wide open flat freeways - if you broke down you could easily pull off onto the grass.

The UK's motorways are typically bordered by steep sides - if it wasn't for the hard shoulder there would be nowhere for broken cars etc to stop except for live lanes.

Example:


The hard shoulder can also be used for the emergency services to get through in the event of a large traffic jam - the UK's motorway network is a lot more congested than US Freeways, so jams build up a lot quicker if theres an accident.