to stop in motorway SOS lay-by so DD could wee

It must be so nice to have the power to control other road users to prevent them colliding with you!

edit - this is for @GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER

Its not over dramatic rubbish... knowing the road has nothing to do with it, you dont know what is going to happn to vehicles travelling on that road no matter how well you know it.

OP, wouldn't you rather have your Daughter crying and wetting herself in the car if need be, or potentially seriously injured or most likely dead after being hit by another vehicle?

This is absolutely ridiculous. 2 family members were killed because idiots did this. You acted irresponsibly and expect people to validate your excuses. You didn't plan your journey properly and put yourself and your daughter in danger because of the "emergency" of not wanting her to wet herself.

It doesn't have to be dark or rush hour for someone to have an accident

DH worked at the Highways Agency, as it was then, in the 1990s. The stats then showed that the average length of time a vehicle stood stationary on the hard shoulder before being crashed into was 7 minutes.

Never stop unless a genuine emergency.

I'd let my kids wet themselves rather than stop on the motorway. The only reason I would stop is if I broke down, or if I was medically incapacitated to the extent I couldn't drive. We've had to drive with kids covered in vomit until we could pull off at services, it's not pleasant but there is a good reason it's illegal to stop on the hard shoulder for a wee!

Nope. You're a fool

You're absolutely bonkers and shouldn't be trusted out with your grandchildren

M3 J1 has a Tesco right by it
J2 is the M25
J3 has Longacres garden centre by it, or a Sainsbury's along the A322
J4 has a Sainsbury's by it.

All for future reference if you need a toilet, though you could have found all this out by using Google maps, very easily

Which is better
a) wet pants and car seat or
b) dead?

We've had vomiting and wet car seats. No stopping for those
We've also had a flat on the motorway and sat behind the car (we weren't near a barrier) and it was very scary. Took about 40 minutes for the AA to come. It was 4 years ago and the DCs still talk about how loud it was.

I always have some sort of container with a lid in the car for this sort of thing. Never had to use it for a wee yet, but it was very useful when my daughter suddenly felt sick with not much warning. She threw up in it and we put the lid on and waited until the next services to sort it out.

sorry wrong person!

Your fault

She should have 'gone' before the motorway but her wetting herself is not the end of the world

What you did was incredibly dangerous - what if you'd been hit by a lorry?

I hope you were caught on camera/

What over-dramatic rubbish. 2 minutes on an empty hard shoulder, on a road we’re very familiar with. It wasn’t dark, or even during the rush hour.

And with grandkids. If my parents did this they wouldn't be allowed the kids again.

Different doing it once like OP and the seeing the issue to doing it regularly and not caring.

That is not ok, you can't stop on the motorway just for a pee. Plan better!

I can think of some fairly minor health/medical reasons where it would be acceptable to stop - but only if it was the driver, and therefore you'd otherwise cause an accident. If a passenger is sick etc you just need to keep driving to the next exit.

Sweating not swearing!

it will take quite a while to get off the motorway, even then you need to be a local to find toilets

I don't know this route well enough to comment on the accuracy of the time it would have taken to get off but you should have aimed for the first opportunity to leave the motorway. In urgent situations you don't drive around looking for the nearest public loos, you find a tree or hedge to go behind!

I met a couple on holiday once that did exactly this - pulled onto the hard shoulder to have a desperate pee. Police caught them and they were charged/fined.

You're incredibly lucky that nothing happened to any of you.

What a stupid thing to do - honestly.

Did it myeelf last week on the M11 op - l was swearing l was that desperate. Wasn't ideal but felt like l had no choice and would rather never have to do it again.

6 miles at 30mph (allowing for the crap M3) is still only 12 minutes

There's no "arguably" about it - it's NOT a medical emergency. If she wets herself and the seat, that's your problem and not an excuse for illegal use of an emergency area.

It might not be an official emergency, but we’ve stopped twice on the M25 hard shoulder to let Gds of 3 or 4 have a wee. It was a question both times of a max of about 2 minutes, and yes, I know you’re not supposed to, but I honestly can’t feel bad or guilty about it.
Please don’t worry about it any more, OP.

So how long does 4 or 6 miles take when you’re traveling at 50mph?

Answer: a few minutes.

You don’t need to necessarily get off the motorway and find a public toilet, just a lay-by or somewhere you can pull off to go behind some bushes as I’m sure we’ve all done at some point in our life. It doesn’t take long to find this.