would you stop on a hard shoulder for this?

[eeniemeenieminiemoe2014]

say you know the next services isnt for 8 miles on a motorway and your houdini of a toddler manages to undo her harness and stand up in her seat.. eould you stop on the hard shoulder? or carry on the 8 miles?

I think the ultimate deciding factor in my decision to stop was knowing full well she wpuld have been climbing through to the front within seconds if I had not stopped.

I will try her in a car seat in a bumper but I suspect because she has sensory issues with being restrained that it will cause meltdowns which are just as dangerous to try drive through

Eeniemeenue take a look at telling harnesses - designed for exactly that.

And whilst I agree with pp that stopping on the hard shoulder is a dangerous choice, the option isn't "stop in a dangerous place or drive safely for ten minutes before stopping," but "stop in a dangerous place to make things safe or drive for ten minutes worrying the whole time about child climbing out of window/pulling my seatbelt/climbing into the front and grabbing the wheel/whatever - but essentially driving with only one eye on the road, spending too much time checking what was happening in the back seat." More likely to have me crashing into a lorry (and killing my unrestrained child in the process) than a very brief stop to sort it.

incarsafetycentre.co.uk/category/special-needs/

Are you anywhere near Milton Keynes, Essex, or Belfast ?

Give the in car safety centre a ring and talk over the issue with them.

If they can't legally fix it nobody can.

Is this the sort of thing you could call the non-emergency line to the police to ask about? I would have said "stop" until I read the other posters here - I had no idea how dangerous the hard shoulder was.

I mean, I knew if you break down you need to get out of the car to wait, but I didn't realise how very quickly you become at risk.

Best friends DH is highways agency, got her to ask him what should happen in rhis scenario. He said ypu should reduce your speed, remain in the first lane and continue to the next exit. You should absolutely not stop for this as the child is at greater risk on the hard shoulder than a short journey unrestrained.

He said if you do stop, everyone must clear the vehicle immediately from the left, and get as far away from the car as possible, so stopping to redo harnesses will mean you are incredibly vulnerable.

He said there is a massive fine for stopping on tbe HS unless in a dire emergency/breakdown.

This is why we have things like run flat tyres now, all designed to reduce the need for a car to stop on the motorway.

1500 deaths a year on the hard shoulder!

we have an emergency services day soon where the traffic police will be at, i might ask their opinion then!

This thread has been a real eye opener, I had no idea the hard shoulder was that dangerous (still don't really understand why, don't dispute the figures just can't figure out why it's so much more dangerous than a moving lane when you've got your own and the people in front of you's driving to factor in too) anyway, what a difficult situation op. I second the suggestion of an in car DVD player to stave off the tantrums caused by a new restraint method/seat/buckle.

I'd have stopped.

Maybe look at Crelling harnesses www.crelling.com/

I'm glad this thread has turned around. The hard shoulder is very dangerous. I was dismayed by the earlier responses. Car seats are obviously a good thing but most of us on here will have travelled unrestrained throughout our entire childhoods. As another poster has pointed out, you are far less likely to be in an accident driving along than on the hard shoulder.

1500 deaths a year on the hard shoulder! I had no idea it was so dangerous either.

There are often other laybys on motorways and areas that the police and highways agency use. It might have been that there was one of those between you and the next services/exit. You're not supposed to stop in those, but if you know one is coming up, it might be safer to do that than stop on the hard shoulder or wait until the next exit. It's a pity that we don't have more rest areas on our motorways - just a car park and picnic area sort of thing, rather than full blown service areas.

Lots of motorways are doing away with hard shoulders now anyway so you'd have to stop in one of those emergency refuges. I wonder if they are even more dangerous?

"a no smacking philosophy that I have."

That isn't a philosophy that you have mathanxiety, it's a philosophy that society has. You're not some exemplary parent because you have a no smacking policy that you're willing to overlook - not smacking your children is the bare minimum criteria for being a decent parent

I posted at the beginning of this thread to say you should stop - I thought it was obvious - and this thread has been a real eye-opener. I definitely won't stop on the hard shoulder so readily in future. But there should be a lot more safe spaces to stop! It's stressful enough having a screaming baby in the car if you have to wait ages for the next exit, let alone having an unrestrained toddler

Nonsense. Almost every child raised in the 70s and before was smacked - not all their parents were shit. I'm not saying smacking is good, but your statement is wrong.

It's also much less frowned upon in other countries, including some of the ones on the continent that people like to compare the UK to unfavourably when it comes to tolerance of children.

In fairness, it's 1500 deaths or injuries on the HS, mulled - not 1500 deaths. But yes it is super-dangerous and I'm really pleased if this thread has made people more aware of that. I can't understand why the government doesn't do more to raise awareness - until I worked in A&E, I had no clue how dangerous it was.

I am now slightly obsessed with the issue, as you can probably tell

I would keep going for all of 8 minutes (estimate assuming 60 mph) rather than risk stopping on the hard shoulder, unless I saw that she was climbing forward and about to be tugging on my arm or trying to open doors. THEN it's an emergency and safer to stop on the hard shoulder to sort her out.

Just to say, on the motorways with hard shoulder running, you will never be more than about 2 minutes from an emergency refuge lay by or an exit. IIRC you ring the control centre on the emergency phone and they temporarily switch the on the red X to allow your vehicle to exit the lay-by safely.

"on the motorways with hard shoulder running, you will never be more than about 2 minutes from an emergency refuge lay by or an exit."

Not in my experience! Last time we were driving on the motorway and DS was screaming we were certainly more than 2 minutes from an exit, and I didn't see an "emergency refuge lay by".

Yes you were right to stop. She could have opened the door or window if she isn't understanding danger.

However I would recommend this car seat www.mothercare.com/forward-facing-car-seats-group-1/kiddy-phoenixfix-pro2-isofix-car-seat/LGC194.html?dwvar_LGC194_color=Marrakech&cgid=car_forwardfacing#sz=90&start=73
We bought one for my DS after he learnt to undo his seatbelt on the motorway a week before a long drive on holiday. I couldn't take the stress of a journey waiting for him to unstrap. Best thing we ever purchased. He was safe, he was comfortable, he loved the ledge it gave him to play or rest on. And he could not, even at age 5-6, reach down to undo his belt. The seat uses the adult belt so it's too low for them to reach. Worth every penny.

Assuming the child locks are activated on the rear doors and windows, that shouldn't be a problem. And even if she could open them, what would stop her leaping out when they were stopped on the HS?

The emergency refuges are only on the smart motorways with the variable speed limits where you can drive on the hard shoulder or there is no hard shoulder. They are supposed to be max 2.5km apart (unless there is an exit). They are for breakdowns /emergencies though so unless your baby was in danger you should carry on to next exit or services. If the motorway has a normal hard shoulder there won't be refuges.

I was reading through the first half of this thread thinking the whole world is batshit crazy. (I already knew they were when it comes to child seats, but even so the responses surprised me.) Luckily some sane posters eventually turned up.

A child not being in a car seat is so safe that (a) having a child in one wasn't even a possibility for most of the history of the motor car and (b) it is still legally allowed, in the UK today, in certain circumstances.

Not only is a child out of a car seat not an emergency, it's not even dangerous. People's belief that it is would apparently cause them to do things that are actually dangerous, such as voluntarily stop on the hard shoulder for any reason less serious than the car being on fire.

If child was opening a car door or trying to get out the window, that I'd count as an emergency.

The risks just aren't comparable. For one thing, the risk of having a crash if you keep going is literally millions of times less than the risk of being hit on the HS. For another, most crashes when driving do not result in fatalities, even if passengers aren't restrained

But how do you factor in a distracted driver? OP is going to be paying more attention to her children in this case than the road.

Op had to get out of the driver's side (obviously) and then refasten her dd, whose car seat was also on the driver's side. I would imagine she also had to grapple with her to get her back in her seat, or at least run the risk of having to grapple with her - or worse still, she could have bolted. This would have taken a couple of very dangerous minutes at least.

And then she would have had to rejoin the carriageway - possibly taking another couple of really quite dangerous minutes.

The 8 miles to the next exit wouldn't have taken much longer and might even have taken less time, whilst being less risky.

The more I think about it the more horrifying it seems. I don't blame OP at all though - it must have been very frightening.