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

So am I. Toddlers loose on the hardshoulder of a M-way? Utterly stupid behaviour. Unforgivably dangerous.

No. But if they do, and you are parked in it there is a good chance that your car will be hit because the car with the blow-out will be difficult to control. Laybys are not for stopping for a pee.

Don't be ridiculous. Dangerous and illegal.

Next time OP just needs to be more prepared. Plan rest stops and make sure everyone goes to the toilet before they leave. Limit drinks to a reasonable amount. No-one needs a full bottle of water per hour.

I'm in my forties now and my mum still makes me go to the toilet before we leave the house and drinks on long car trips are practically forbidden. Last time we went on holiday we stopped at a roadside food truck (with no toilets) for a bacon sarnie. She allowed us to share two tins of coke between the five of us and that was only after we all tantrummed like children

Next time, would she agree to pull ups as a one off for the journey?

Sorry OP but that is really dangerous as pp's have said. You do need to be better prepared. It is not worth the risk.

I would also be surprised if nobody was watching. A Highway England Employee explained that if you are in an Emergency Refuge Area for more than a minute or so, they would be alerted in the control room because there are sensors in those bays - so they would be watching what you're doing. You may get a fine/points if they were in fact monitoring.

You're also not supposed to leave without picking up the SOS phone and letting them know, because they need to close a lane for you to join safely. There isn't enough room to pick up enough speed to join.

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.
I'm glad you're not looking after my children

No you don’t.

you phone national highways (using the phone in the refuge area) and they arrange a lane closure to allow you to safely enter the main carriageway

You could certainly argue that somebody wetting themselves but you'd be wrong LOL. On what planet is that comparable to a stroke, heart attack or severe blood loss? 😂

Not only is there the risk of a car smashing into the back of your stationary car, you're also taking the space for a driver that has a real emergency or breakdown.

Stupid and dangerous. You put your child’s life at risk.

The bay is definitelt not meant for 3 vehicles.They are so long because vehicles need to slow down and speed up not a o that cars can park bumper to bumper.Also, not every vehicle is the size of your car- what about articulated lorries?

I don't think so.

It isn't just about 'sticking to the rules'. It is about her safety (and yours).

The sort of accidents that happen beside motorway lanes end badly for any pedestrians -or even those in stationary cars. Out of control cars hurtle into lay-bys - for obvious reasons.

If she had a shoulder injury -and was in pain-would you let her travel without a seat belt on the motorway?

I’m with @WhistPie, there are lots of options to stop off down the M3, even just to find a random hedge to pee in. Fleet services is about 25 mins from the M25, but there are three other junctions before then. There were other options here and the SOS area was definitely a bad choice !

I did that drive the other day (but coming the other way), and my just potty trained toddler told me as we left the m25 she needed a wee, so she had to wait until we were through the roadworks. Didn’t really occur to me to stop in the emergency pull in areas - it wasn’t an emergency, wouldn’t have been available in case of emergency and I’ve watched too many videos of cars ploughing into stationary cars on the hard shoulder (unlikely I know!). So I do think you probably shouldn’t have and your daughter should have held on (I sympathise though because I always need a wee badly on that stretch of road!)

https://www.theaa.com/breakdown-cover/advice/emergency-areas#:~:text=They%20are%20signposted%20as%20%27SOS,flow%20and%20increase%20driver%20safety.

Before leaving, you must contact the Regional Control Centre using the SOS phone. They’ll dispatch a National Highways Traffic Officer and/or set signs and signals (red 'X') to help you back onto the motorway safely. Do not attempt to leave until you have permission from the control centre or traffic officer.

There’s no “arguably” about it.
Needing to wee is NOT a medical emergency.

Ask the idiots who designed them!

You wait for a space in the traffic just as you do if you're pulling out of many roads or T-junctions. You indicate and move forwards slowly, and hopefully traffic in Lane 1 will see you and move over to Lane 2. Then you pull out when it's clear.

Well you won't do it again will you? Lesson learnt, we all make mistakes

If an SOS bay is only 100 metres long how is a driver meant to get up to 70mph to safely rejoin the motorway? Apparently the driver may exit the bay but this could cause a crash further down the motorway.

I'm fully aware of that - the link- but these were different things. The cars where people died had broken down in the live lane and the traffic wasn't stopped in time.

A stretch of one of England’s major roads has seen a 20-fold increase in these incidents in the five years since being converted to a smart motorway.
The hard shoulder was removed from a section of Greater London’s orbital motorway, the M25, in 2014 to make way for an extra driving lane.

'The hard shoulder was removed'.

I am guessing that a lot of posters here haven't been on a motorway where there are emergency bays.

Every 800 yards there are SOS bays and this is what they are building more of on the M3. The bays used to be every mile, but the plans have been changed to make them closer together.

You're confusing smart motorways with live lanes, and the OP was stopped in an SOS bay. This is a layby that is sectioned off, out of Lane 1.

Do you mean someone on the hard shoulder?

This was an SOS emergency layby.

It would be hard to shunt another car if pulling into a layby behind it (unless it was a brake failure) but the bays are meant for more than one car anyway.

Yes, I am sure.

https://www.rac.co.uk/drive/news/motoring-news/38-people-killed-on-smart-motorways-in-last-five-years-bbc-panorama-reveals/

Wee on the seat. You can always carpet wash it. It is just wee. I knew someone who got shunted by another car whilst doing this exact thing.

You could have stopped before the M3. Yabu.