hard shoulder

noun

noun

A verge to the side of a highway, which should be used only in case of an emergency (especially on a motorway)

As he neared a bridge over the East Coast Main Line near Great Heck, he lost control. His Land Rover left the carriageway and veered onto the hard shoulder before biting into the grass verge.2021 February 24, Greg Morse, “Great Heck: a tragic chain of events”, in RAIL, number 925, page 38:

Entry derived from the Wiktionary, under licence CC BY-SA 4.0 — list of authors.