Or wake up on the bunk and think the truck is driving itself with nobody at the wheel.
Been there, done that, don’t want the t shirt .Once on nightshift doing a change over ( at a time I was going through a nasty divorce, losing wife ,kids and house), I was clockwise on the M25 just after the A1 exit running unit only I hit a parked artic on the hard shoulder @53mph. Woke up just in time to swerve and let passenger side get it. that’s the speed the tacho stopped at. Cops asked me what happened and I just shrugged my shoulders didn,t say a word .My boss wanted to fire me there and then but had to wait to see what the cops were going to do, as luck would have it they put it down to an accident. Ever since then I,ve always been aware of tiredness. This was about 20+ yrs ago now.
ray
Firstly,
Brave bloke admitting that on here.
Secondly,
Three pages at least.
Thirdly,
Blah blah blah think of the children
To Tipper Tom, the moral of my story is no matter where you are Do take a short break to stop the drowsiness. I was very lucky and learned my lesson from that and now its if I am tired at all I pull over also I,m semi retired in the US. This needed to be told for young and old, newbies and experienced drivers too, so stay safe fellow truckers .If this story save just one driver then it would have been worth posting. Also I gave up driving in 99 and work went in another direction, non driving .
ray
How about blacking-out? 
NO Karl, mine wasn,t a blacking out just tiredness, yes I agree a blacking out is just as dangerous.
ray
Wasn’t me TBF, somebody I know…
flyer747:
To Tipper Tom, the moral of my story is no matter where you are Do take a short break to stop the drowsiness. I was very lucky and learned my lesson from that and now its if I am tired at all I pull over also I,m semi retired in the US. This needed to be told for young and old, newbies and experienced drivers too, so stay safe fellow truckers .If this story save just one driver then it would have been worth posting. Also I gave up driving in 99 and work went in another direction, non driving .
ray
I think you misunderstand. I meant the first part of my post. Very brave admitting it for good reasons.
The last bit was my attempt at humour.
Tipper Tom, no offence taken and thank you for your kind words in saying that I,m brave, dunno about that, see I no longer have any UK licences and don’t live in UK and as its been 20+ yrs ago thought it might be time to try and help and let people know what drowsiness/ tiredness can do.
ray
From stuff I’ve read and seen posted elsewhere this m.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-wiltshire-25613565
earlier this week was the result of a sleepy driver.
I suppose thankfully cars don’t make as big a mess as trucks when they ■■■■ it up
there are alot of people including myself who have come within a milli second of experiencing this situation. When i trunked on nights on a very very few occassions over a 5 year period i know i came very close to falling asleep at the wheel and perhaps for a split second i did and i tell you what it scared the pants of me 
When I was a young driver of about 22, I had a load of apples to deliver to Sheffield fruit market at 6.00am. As I got near to the city I started to look for someone to ask directions of. Soon I spotted an old chap on a bike, flat cap, long grey overcoat with a shopping bag on his handlebars. I pulled just past him, stopped the lorry and ran round to the back to have a word with him. NOT A SOUL IN SIGHT! No turnings, no houses, nowhere for him to have gone. Never drove tired again.
Did you have a look underneath 
peterm:
Did you have a look underneath
Some have seen wild beasts running in front if the truck.Harsh braking applied.Nothing was there.
For some reason, tiredness causes hallucinations.But is that man standing in a field playing bagpipes actualy true.?
peterm:
Did you have a look underneath
Why didn’t I think of that? 
Was that bump you hit a Nissan Micra.?Oops.
I was nodding a bit driving up the M6 earlier, thought i’d pull in & grab a 45. Got my head down & overslept by an hour 
Don’t know what happened with my alarm. 
Felt great afterwards though Thankfully was on my way to an untimed drop which was also my last of the day.
When you are driving a coach you don’t have the option of power napping. I had to find methods of stopping me nodding when I was over the continent and those drives across France were designed to make you fall asleep, long straight perfectly smooth AutoRoute’s
So I found the following helpful:
music through Walkman/ipod etc. (the coaches I drove had curtains between the driver and passengers)
Pain, Chinese burn on the inside of your leg wakes you straight away (trouble is it bloody hurts)
Dynamic tension, I learned this while doing weights. Tense your muscles as if you are doing bench curls and pretend there is a bar. You can do shoulders and chest and even squats by raising out of the seat tensing your quads. This is a great method
Dancing, play music really loud and dance in your seat
Anything is better than getting killed