Breaking Down on a Two-Lane: What to Do First

Narrow shoulders, high speeds and long response times. The order of actions that keeps everyone safe out here.

Most of the roads across the South Plains are two-lane with a narrow or soft shoulder and traffic moving at seventy. A breakdown there is a genuinely different situation from a breakdown in town, and the first two minutes matter most.

Getting off the road

1. 1Signal early and get as far right as you can. A vehicle partly in the lane is the single largest risk.
2. 2Look for a wide spot, a field entrance or a turnout rather than stopping on a narrow shoulder if you have any control left.
3. 3Avoid stopping on a curve or over a rise. Approaching traffic needs to see you with time to react.
4. 4Hazard lights on immediately.
5. 5Do not stop in soft sand or on a steep shoulder — you may not get out, and a vehicle that has settled sideways is harder to work on safely.

Getting people safe

The safest place is generally out of the vehicle and well away from the road, on the far side from traffic — behind a fence line or well up an embankment. The exception is where getting out is more dangerous than staying in: heavy traffic, no shoulder, or extreme weather.

Never stand between your vehicle and oncoming traffic, and never change a tire on the traffic side of a vehicle on a two-lane road. That is worth waiting for help over.

Being seen

• Reflective triangles or flares set well back — further than feels necessary, because closing speed is high.
• Hazards on, and the dome light on after dark.
• A reflective vest if you have one. Cheap and genuinely effective.

Heat is the real danger out here

In summer, a stranded vehicle on the South Plains is a heat problem before it is a mechanical one. Stay in shade if there is any, keep water aboard as a matter of routine, and do not attempt to walk for help in July — distances out here are longer than they look and there is nothing between.

What we do

Once you are safely off the road, get the vehicle to our shop on Frankford Ave in Lubbock — on the spare or on a tow — and we will fix what failed and check the rest. Call with what happened and we will be ready for it.