If your vehicle becomes disabled on a 400-series highway, you should…?
- Blow your horn for help
- Get out and walk to get help
- Get out and try to wave highway traffic around your vehicle
- Pull over, activate your emergency flashers and wait for help ✓
Answer: D. Pull over, activate your emergency flashers and wait for help
Pull over to the nearest shoulder, turn on your emergency flashers and wait for help inside your vehicle.
Why this is the answer
The handbook's freeway trouble section says to act at the first sign of trouble: check your mirrors, put on your hazard lights, ease off the gas and get to the nearest shoulder. It warns never to stop in the driving lanes. While you wait for help, stay in your vehicle with the doors locked; if someone stops, ask them to call the police or an automobile club, and use a cellphone yourself if you have one. That matches pulling over, using flashers and waiting rather than standing outside.
Why the other answers are wrong
- A. Blow your horn for help — Blowing your horn is not the handbook's instruction for a disabled vehicle; it tells you to pull over, use hazard lights and wait for help.
- B. Get out and walk to get help — Leaving the vehicle to walk for help goes against the handbook's direction to stay in your vehicle with the doors locked while you wait.
- C. Get out and try to wave highway traffic around your vehicle — Getting out to wave traffic around your vehicle is wrong because the handbook says to stay in your vehicle while waiting for help, not stand in traffic.
Remember it
When your car quits on a fast highway, your job is to get off the lanes and be a patient passenger, not a traffic director.