Vehicle & Equipment · Driver Training VideoBreakdown & Shoulder Safety

Every year, drivers are killed not by the breakdown itself, but by getting struck while standing next to their own truck on the shoulder. The breakdown isn't the danger — the traffic around it is.

Start with the truck

The instant something feels wrong — a tire, a shudder, a warning light — get off the travel lane. Don't try to nurse it to the next exit if it's failing right now. Signal early, ease onto the shoulder, and get as far right as the pavement allows.

Once you're stopped: hazard lights on immediately, and they stay on the whole time you're down. Set the parking brake. Before you get out, check your mirrors for a gap in traffic — you're about to become a pedestrian on a live highway.

Now the regulation

Federal rule 392.22 says if you're stopped on the roadway or shoulder for any reason other than a normal traffic stop, you must put out warning triangles as soon as possible — and no later than 10 minutes after you stop. Not a guideline. Federal law, and it's timed.

Placement is specific: one triangle at 10 feet from your truck, on the traffic side, in the center of the lane or shoulder you're occupying. Then one at 100 feet in the direction traffic is coming from. Then one more at 100 feet in the opposite direction.

Two exceptions worth knowing

In a business or residential district with adequate street lighting, triangles aren't required. And if you're hauling anything flammable — tankers, hazmat loads — never use a flare or fusee. Reflective triangles only. An open flame next to a fuel load is its own disaster.

Here's the part that gets drivers killed: walking back out to place that far triangle against the flow of traffic. That's the highest-risk motion of the whole event. Watch over your shoulder the entire walk. Never turn your back on moving traffic to place a device.

Your company standard: hazards on the second you stop, triangles out within 10 minutes at 10, 100, and 100 feet, no flares near flammable cargo, and you call it in to dispatch before you touch a wrench or climb under the trailer.