I had taken the M6/M5 route to the M42 for the M40 on my Saturday morning trunk to miss the roadworks on the M6.As I was approaching the M42/M40 split,where you have to move over to the centre lane to continue onto the M40,I was catching up with a Saints truck doing about 45 mph and weaving.using some hard shoulder and some of lane 2.
I moved into lane 2 to go onto the M40 and gave him a flash to warn him I was coming through and to stick to his lane.
I must have woken him up as he speeded up and indicated to move into lane 2 which he did when I was a couple of metres from his tail end.
His flat out speed was about 1 metre per hour faster than me,so I eased off to give him some room as it was going to take some time to create a gap at that speed difference.
I intended coming off at Warwick services,but as we passed junction 13,his brake lights came on and he slowed quite a bit.A quick ckeck in my mirror,indicate and out.I just got my cab past his when he started to speed up again,and slowly came up my inside until our cabs were level.
We were now coming up to the Warwick services pretty quickly,so I put on my left indicator even though we were side by side.He got the message and eased off.
I pulled into the MSA expecting him to do likewise as he obviously required a rest,but no,he carried on!
The mind boggles at the antics of some drivers.It’s a good job they are few and far between.
In those circumstances what should you do■■?
Phone the law?..No way.
Push him into the services■■?
Phone his boss■■?
Pull along side, put the window down, sound your horn, Shout “are you ok pal?”…probably.
I can’t understand how some drivers let themselves get into a dangerous situation like this.
I’ve driven for many more hours than i should have in the past but i’ve never let myself get to the point of falling asleep at the wheel.
Worst I saw was on the A42. We’d been stopped for a while for an accident. Traffic moved off albeit slowly and one of the reasons was that an artic driver had fallen asleep in L1. As I passed him I banged on the horn to wake him up.
To be fair, it was a nice sunny day and we’d been there an hour and we hadn’t been moving so it wasn’t exactly dangerous - just funny to see an artic completely stopped with everyone just going around him and his head on the steering wheel. 