hard shoulder

British

noun

a surfaced verge running along the edge of a motorway for emergency stops

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

The horrific reality was that their car was stranded in the outside lane - lane four - of a smart motorway, with no hard shoulder to escape to in the event of a breakdown.

From BBC

They also use the hard shoulder as an extra lane of traffic to increase capacity, but critics claim that has led to road deaths.

From BBC

Two other schemes, that allow drivers to use the hard shoulder as an additional lane, have proved more controversial.

From BBC

"We were already parked in a really dangerous place as there was no hard shoulder."

From BBC

Tregonning told officers he used the hard shoulder because "at the that time I believed that was an emergency for me".

From BBC

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023