What to do when your vehicle breaks down

In order: get out of the travel lane if the vehicle will still move, put your hazard lights on, and then decide whether it is safer to stay buckled inside or to get well away from the vehicle. Only once you are settled do you work out where you are and make the call.

That third step is the one people get wrong, and it is worth understanding rather than memorising, because the right answer changes depending on where you ended up.

The first thirty seconds

Whatever just happened — a warning light, a noise, a loss of power — your only job right now is to stop somewhere that is not a traffic lane.

If the engine has died you will usually keep rolling for a while. Power steering and power brakes get much heavier without the engine, so both will take real effort, but they still work. Use that momentum. Signal, check your mirror, and move right.

Aim for, in order of preference: an exit ramp, a parking lot, a wide right shoulder, a left shoulder if you were already in a left lane and cannot cross. AAA’s guidance is to pull as far onto the right shoulder as you can without leaving level ground — soft ground and steep slopes create a new problem.

Once stopped, put it in park, set the parking brake firmly, and turn the front wheels away from the roadway so the vehicle cannot drift back into traffic.

Hazard lights on — and what Oklahoma law does with them

Turn your hazards on immediately, day or night. Beyond making you visible, they have legal weight in this state.

Oklahoma’s Move Over Law covers any vehicle displaying flashing lights, including hazard lights — which means a disabled motorist on the shoulder, not just emergency vehicles and wreckers. Drivers approaching you on a road with two or more lanes in your direction are required to change into a lane that is not adjacent to you; if they cannot change lanes safely, they must slow to a speed that is safe for the conditions.

That protection only applies if your lights are on. Turn them on before you do anything else.

Where it is safest to wait

Here is the nuance that a lot of advice flattens.

If you got the vehicle off the road and away from traffic: stay inside, with your seatbelt fastened. This is AAA’s standard advice, and the reason is blunt — other drivers may not see your vehicle, and they are even less likely to see a person standing next to it, particularly at night or in bad weather. Your vehicle is a structure designed to absorb an impact. You standing beside it are not.

If you could not get off the roadway, or you are somewhere you would not want to be if another vehicle came through — a live lane, a narrow shoulder against fast traffic, a blind curve — the calculation flips. AAA is explicit that if you think your vehicle might get hit, it is better to exit carefully and move to a safer place than to sit in it.

If you do get out, leave through the door away from traffic, and get well clear — behind a barrier or up an embankment, not just a few feet from the bumper. Then tell whoever you called where you actually are, so the driver is not looking for you in the vehicle.

If you are stopped in a live lane and cannot move, call 911 first. Getting traffic managed is more urgent than arranging a tow.

Work out where you are

You will need this in about a minute, so do it while you are settling.

The single best answer is a dropped pin from your phone’s map app, shared by text. If that is not an option:

• On the Creek Turnpike or the Broken Arrow Expressway: the direction you were heading, plus the last exit you passed. Which shoulder you are on matters — the two directions are separated, and a driver on the wrong side has a long way to go to turn around.
• On US-169 or the Muskogee Turnpike: same idea — direction and last exit or mile marker.
• On a city street: nearest cross street plus a visible business.
• In a lot: the business name and which side of the building.

Look around for a landmark now rather than trying to describe it later with a driver on the line.

Make the call

Now ring for help. The six things to have ready will make it quick, but the compressed version is: where you are, what the vehicle is, what it is doing, where it needs to go.

Describe the symptom rather than your theory. A fair number of breakdowns are not tows — a dead battery, a flat, an empty tank and a lockout are all things that can be fixed where you sit. Whether you need roadside help or a tow walks through how to tell them apart.

While you wait

• Hazards stay on the whole time.
• Stay buckled if you are waiting in the vehicle.
• Keep your phone on and the ringer up — the driver may need to call.
• Do not stand in front of or behind the vehicle. If it is struck, that is where it goes.
• Do not try to change a tire on the traffic side of the vehicle on a highway shoulder.
• If somebody stops to help and you did not ask them to, you are under no obligation. Stay in the vehicle with the window up and say help is already coming.

In the dark, in the heat, in the cold

Oklahoma weather has opinions. In summer, a vehicle without air conditioning gets dangerous faster than people expect — if you are staying inside, crack windows, drink water, and say so on the phone if you have children, older passengers or pets with you. In winter, stay with the vehicle; it is shelter.

After dark, an interior dome light makes you considerably more visible to an approaching driver than hazards alone.

Afterwards

Once the vehicle is on its way somewhere, the useful next question is where it is going and what happens when it gets there. What happens during a pickup and delivery covers the rest of the job, including after-hours drop-offs at a shop.