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

[TheWrongBus]

Genuine question, curious if there is an official/legal answer.

Driving to West Country, inevitably stuck in bad traffic jams on M25, DD9 suggests she may need a wee at some point but we’re only about an hour away from our lunch stop so I tell her ideally we’ll push through.

What I didn’t realise is that she’d drunk half her (large) bottle of water before we left home. She admits this just as we’re joining the M3 where there are seemingly permanent roadworks, no hard shoulder and emergency SOS lay-byes only.

I check and we’re around 25 minutes from the next services and at least 15 minutes from the next junction. Daughter at this point starts to cry because she’s so desperate so we decide to pull into the SOS lay-bye and hubby takes her behind the crash barrier for a wee. From what he reports it’s clearly not the first time this spot has been used in this way….

I don’t like using the lay-bye for this purpose and appreciate there are dangers to stopping there but I’m not sure what else we could have done. With the M25 traffic and the M3 roadworks I think it was at least 50 minutes between the previous M25 junction and the next M3 junction and literally nowhere we could stop between. So what else could we have done?

Am hoping they don’t fine people for using these lay-byes in a non-emergency, but given daughter literally about to wet herself isn’t it arguably a medical emergency anyway?

You should have told her to wee in her seat. No one likes to wet themselves, especially when they can't change immediately after but most of us have done it, she would have coped.

When I was a kid, the leaving the house conversation went like this
Parent: ok if you haven't been to the toilet, go now
Various kids: but I don't want to go
Parent: go anyway.
We didn't leave the house until we'd all gone!
(And one of us would invariably need a wee anyway once we were on the road)
Those emergency bays on smart motorways - nothing short of a life or death emergency would induce me to stop in one. They terrify me. Apart from the obvious danger to myself, how do you live with the knowledge that you've prevented a car in real trouble from getting to safety? Things can go very wrong very quickly.
They might be three car lengths long, but a car in trouble doesn't really have the luxury of slowing down and negotiating an exit into the space that's left without smacking into your parked car.

Shocking. Just shocking.

Why are posters using hard shoulder and SOS lay-byinterchangeably? They are not nearly the same thing and the SOS lay-bys are much safer than stopping on the hard shoulder.

Yes it is very dangerous. The only time we had to stop the car had broken down. We got behind the barrier very quickly. Some cars and lorries were so close to our car when driving past. It was scary.

You can get bags of gel to wee in. Also, do not give DD a full bottle of water unsupervised - or anything at all to drink just before the journey. A drink fifteen minutes or so before, and a trip to the loo are a good idea.

Travelled many miles with DC in my long past thirties. Never once stopped in a layby (except once in India on a country road in daylight - toilets not readily available anywhere and not clean, either). Did not give them drinks in the car or have drinks just before leaving (applies to adults as well) but boiled sweets to suck (age-appropriate and usually ginger flavoured - car sickness) as this causes saliva in the mouth, and something to do (it's that long ago they had Walkmans!).
Stopping for a wee is not an emergency. It could cause an accident either to you/your DC or to others who may need to pull-off the road for a real emergency (heart attack, baby about to be born, flat tyre/tyre burst).

my dsis does this all the time ive tol her not to-ironially same niece i got hhher to hold it in one time till i could stop that was about 45 minutes

They’re both for emergencies only.

Ok, I try, I really try, not to get dragged into these derails, but I can't let this go. WhistPie, I have to assume, like me, you're local? So you consider Longacres is next to the M3? Its nearly 2 miles away. Sainsbury's at Brookwood? 4 miles from the junction. Sure if you know them, you know them, but the OP isn't local, how does she know about these places? Sainsburys off J4, what about the Meadows? All perfectly possible if you have the time, but in that case you will just stop at Fleet services.

Knowing the location of toilets wasn't the problem, managing the timing of needing the toilet clearly was.

Stupid and dangerous. When she said she needed a wee you should have stopped, "pushing through" to lunch for the next hour was a daft idea.

how do you live with the knowledge that you've prevented a car in real trouble from getting to safety

The chances of this are almost nil.

Lesson learnt, just don’t do it again. I’m always learning lessons.

For anyone unsure how to use an emergency refuse area - www.theaa.com/breakdown-cover/advice/emergency-areas#:~:text=An%20emergency%20refuge%20area%20(now,regular%20intervals%20along%20smart%20motorways.

This has reminded me of when we stopped on the hard shoulder. It wasn't a medical emergency but my DC stupidly opened the back door of the car as we were travelling along at 70mph. What should we have done in that situation?
Even driving along to the next junction would have been dangerous.

Yes but the SOS lay by is a lot safer than the hard shoulder.

Not when you're trying to re-join the motorway it's not. The police - as others have already pointed out - need to stop the traffic for this to happen safely.

I personally wouldn't have pulled over as just the thought of what could potentially happen makes me feel uneasy.

Could be an idea to have some emergency nappies in the glove box which DD could pop under her and wee into (if the situation occured again). Obviously not very nice but better then the dangers of a lay-by.

You don't have time to pull out if someone needs the layby urgently (they may be going v. fast) and what will you do about DC still having a wee etc? Leave them? Likely to die if someone is driving in because of a tyre blow-out. Never stop in a layby/hardshoulder - SOS stops only in a dire emergency i.e. heart attack etc, major problem with car.

We weren't constantly drinking from bloody water bottles, either!

That's a different situation and a perfectly valid reason to stop on the hard shoulder. It's not just for medical emergencies.

Because they're both for emergencies only, so it doesn't really matter which one it was.

They’re pretty big as they can hold four cars or a big lorry.
If someone gets a blow out at 70mph, they aren’t going to be able to steer into a lay by.

Really?

Why do the police need to stop traffic to allow cars to get back onto the carriageway safely then?

It does in terms of all the “omg that is so dangerous, you could have died” posts.

My DP did from the outside lane.