Breaking down on an interstate is a different situation from breaking down in a parking lot or on a quiet side street. The vehicles around you are moving fast, the shoulder is narrow, and the decisions you make in the first few minutes matter more than most drivers realize. I-20 and I-59 run directly through Tuscaloosa and the surrounding area, and we respond to breakdowns along both of them regularly. Here’s what those first ten minutes actually look like — and what you should be doing during each of them.
The First 60 Seconds: Get Off the Road
The single most important thing you can do in the first minute is get your vehicle as far off the travel lanes as possible. If your car is still moving — even slowly, even with a flat tire — keep going until you reach the shoulder. A flat tire driven on for a few hundred feet is far cheaper to deal with than a car sitting in a live lane of interstate traffic.
Pull as far right as you can. In an ideal world, you want to be completely off the paved surface and onto the grass or gravel beyond the white line. That extra few feet of distance between your vehicle and passing traffic makes a significant difference. Do not stop in the travel lane, do not stop on the on-ramp or off-ramp unless you have absolutely no choice, and do not stop under an overpass if you can avoid it — overpasses narrow the shoulder considerably and reduce your visibility to approaching drivers.
The moment you stop, turn your hazard lights on. This should be automatic — hazards on before you even put it in park.
Minutes One Through Three: Stay Inside or Get Away — Pick One
This is where most drivers make a mistake. They get out of the car, stand next to it on the shoulder, and wait. That’s one of the more dangerous places you can be on an interstate. Drivers drifting toward the shoulder, distracted or tired, have very little reaction time when they see a stopped vehicle — and even less when they see a person standing next to it.
The general guidance from highway safety organizations is this: if you can stay inside your vehicle safely, stay inside with your seatbelt on. A car offers significant protection that standing on a shoulder does not. If your vehicle is in a position where staying inside feels dangerous — if it’s partially in a travel lane, if it’s on a curve with limited visibility, or if there’s a fire or smoke — then get out and get completely away from the vehicle. Move up the embankment, behind a guardrail, or as far from the road as the terrain allows. Do not stand directly behind or beside your vehicle.
The one thing you should not do is stand between your vehicle and oncoming traffic while you wait for help.
Minutes Three Through Five: Make Yourself Visible
Your hazard lights are already on. Now add to that visibility however you can. If you have road flares, reflective triangles, or emergency cones in your vehicle, now is the time to place them — set them behind your vehicle at intervals of roughly 50 to 100 feet to give approaching drivers more warning time. Not everyone carries these, but if you do, use them.
If it’s dark, raining, or foggy — conditions that are more common along the low-lying stretches of I-20 and I-59 around Tuscaloosa than people expect — your visibility to other drivers drops dramatically. Interior dome lights, a flashlight held out a cracked window, or even a phone flashlight propped in the rear window can supplement your hazards in low-visibility conditions.
If you have a bright or reflective vest in your vehicle, put it on before you exit. If you don’t, consider keeping one in your trunk — they’re inexpensive and make a real difference if you ever need to be outside your vehicle on the shoulder.
Minutes Five Through Seven: Call for Help
Once you’re in a safe position and your vehicle is as visible as you can make it, call for help. This is the moment to call a towing company, not the first thing you do before you’ve secured your situation. Knowing your exact location before you call saves time — look for the nearest mile marker post on the shoulder (they’re small green signs with white numbers posted at one-mile intervals), note which direction you’re traveling, and identify the nearest exit number if you passed one recently. That information gets a driver heading your way faster than “I’m on I-20 somewhere near Tuscaloosa.”
If you’re unsure of your location, pull up your maps app and read us the coordinates or drop a pin — we can work with that too.
Minutes Seven Through Ten: Don’t Try to Fix It Yourself
This is the part nobody wants to hear. If you have a flat tire, the instinct is to get out and change it yourself. On a neighborhood street, that’s reasonable. On the shoulder of I-20 or I-59, crouching behind your vehicle to change a tire while traffic passes at highway speed is genuinely dangerous — more dangerous than most drivers give it credit for, especially at night or in wet conditions.
The same goes for attempting to jump your own battery by flagging down another driver. Getting someone to pull up alongside you on a highway shoulder, with both vehicles stopped and cables running between them, creates a situation that’s hard to manage safely with fast-moving traffic nearby.
If help is on the way, the smartest thing you can do in those last few minutes is wait in the safest position you’ve found, stay on the phone if you need to, and let the professionals handle the vehicle once they arrive. The tow takes minutes. The risk of trying to fix it yourself on the interstate shoulder isn’t worth it.
One Last Thing
Interstate breakdowns in the Tuscaloosa area happen more often along certain stretches — the merge points near the I-20/I-59 split, the construction zones that shift lanes unexpectedly, and the long flat stretches between exits where a car running on fumes finally gives out. If you drive these roads regularly, keeping a few basics in your trunk — a reflective triangle, a phone charger, a flashlight, and knowing where your spare is — costs almost nothing and changes the situation considerably if you ever need them.
Every Hours Towing Co. responds to breakdowns along I-20, I-59, and the surrounding Tuscaloosa County road network. If you break down, call us and we’ll get to you.