Though you should never exit your car on the highway following a Wisconsin car crash or breakdown, the following directions can help keep you safe while waiting for help to come:
- Roll up a white cloth or piece of paper into the driver’s side window to signal to other drivers that you are in trouble. This also lets them know to go around your vehicle. This signal can help prevent traffic from piling up, and keep you from being rear-ended while stalled.
- If you have a cell phone, use it to call the highway patrol or, if you have membership, an auto club such as AAA. If you see that you are near to an emergency phone box, get back in the car and lock the doors as quickly as you can following the call. Only do this if the emergency call box is very close by; if it is across lanes of traffic, you are safer waiting in your car.
- If you must get out to work on your car, never stand on the side of the car closest to traffic, because that entails significant risks of being struck by a passing driver. Try to do what you can from the front of the vehicle, or from the side farthest from the traffic.