There was a major tie up one time. Many cars were fed up and driving in the breakdown lane to get to the next exit. Some would try and cut back in just before (or after) the exit (y'know they were scamming--those dirty bastards!). This of course P.O.'s all the folks legally and patiently waiting in line to get past the accident.
Well, finally I was tired of waiting myself and although I generally don't pull that illegal maneuver, and it annoys me when others do it. I was tired of waiting, and watching, and waiting, and watching (etc) so I decided I would that day. (NOTE: I was getting off at the exit, not cutting back in up ahead).
Now the fun part is that some of the annoyed folks were blocking the breakdown lane because they felt they were now enforcers of the law or just wanted to annoy us as much as we were annoying them. But there was plenty of unpaved road to the side of that. I and a bunch of others just drove around them, baja style. I wasn't in a truck, just your everyday FWD econobox. It was a bit bumpy,but I was going slow (20mph max) and actually enjoyed driving by the breakdown lane blockers. I'm sure they thought they were winning because we had to go offroad, but, really, it made no difference to me. No problems to my car, saved probably another halfhour of stop and go. Didn't obstruct any ambulances in the process.*
Ironically, the breakdown lane blockers were posing a bigger problem than those of us driving along, as, if an ambulance / emergency vehicle was needed to get there at least the other cars were MOVING... they were making the traffic worse by blocking that lane.
*no emergency vehicles came by the half hour I was already waiting AND there was the exit/entrance before the accident so they could get to it via another on-ramp, etc, so it was likely a non-issue. Not that it makes what I/we did right.
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