God knows how many years ago ( car was a 2.3 cortina ) I broke down various times on m1 comming back from Luton airport ( another story ) , every time we stopped car cut out , after cooling started , eventually coppers came & told us just to get off motorway via hard shoulder , ok until lorry blocked us , only when a irate cop car came down hard shoulder did he let us off , could see what he was thinking but was genuine , could be any reason , illness , pregnancy etc , so I get frustrations but not a good idea to block hard shoulder
Nb if I’d not had a breakdown I’d probably be the one blocking the hard shoulder as well