Asleep at the wheel

"I've got a date with a KB8"
There must be hundreds of stories out there of scary moments when dozing off as we all have done at some time or other, not a fun subject but should be some pretty interesting stories. One of the tricks I used was at the first sign of light, pull off the road and lay over the wheel, wake up an hour or so later in full daylight, my little brain thinking I had slept all night! The downside was it would cut off the circulation in my left arm, when I stopped at a roadhouse for brekky I looked like an idiot trying to eat with one hand, usually came good a bit later, Knew one guy in Broken Hill got drunk and slept over the wheel for about 6 hours and lost the use of his left arm permanantly.
My first big scare was coming back from Geelong to Melbourne empty late at night, dozed off and my guardian angel woke me heading straight for two cars parked behind each other with two couples talking in between, I can still see their faces today looking frozen at the truck, I was doing a fair clip being empty, so no way they would have survived, I yanked the wheel to the right, the long bogie semi and old ring type turntable stabilizing the prime mover so it didn't roll, may have yanked the trailer brake on also.

The saddest time was when a mate and I were leaving Adelaide for Sydney, he was in an R190 and I in my KB9, (same mother only different father) We stopped at a place in SA called Truro where you could get a beer after 6 pm if you were a bona fide traveller, an old English law where everything had to shut down at dark to keep people off the streets, no mischief!! why they showed off calling it "bona fide" instead of ridgy didg or fair dinkum traveller I don't know.
After a few beers I suggested he go in front as he was faster than me, EVERYONE was faster than me! I arrived at the Kingston ferry to find he had dozed off and ran full belt through the open gates of the ferry into the back of a semi parked on the ferry pushing it half into the water, I walked onto the ferry and they had laid my mate out on the deck stone dead, I kept looking at him thinking I could wake him up, takes the wind out of your sails, turned around and went through Loxton. The only other one I came across was East of Ballranold, A Leyland beaver had left the road and hit a large tree dead centre, the cab wrapped around the tree, an ambulance arrived a few minutes later, I had my camera with me but could not bring myself to take a picture with the guy still in it, so moved on, so many young guys killed just trying to earn an honest dollar, lot of drivers would not want to got there but would be interesting to hear some tales.

As always, thanks for the posts Ol Mate..

Yes it only takes an instant and its all over...
i have witnessed more than enough over the years also.
One in particular from memory, northbound on the Hume one night, there were 3 fellas in a ute, we had passed each other several times on the trip....
There was a new bridge being built and they had a 'side track' put in on the left..
The ute pulled out to pass the semi, that was seemingly pulling up to the left.
Straight under an elevated concrete beam that was awaiting fitment...
The rest is history, if there was any consolation, it would have been instantaneous.....

All so easy, all too often..

chocs

Reminds me of a guy I used to hang around with. He was a share farmer on 2 properties - which were accessed via both legs of a triangle intersection leading off a leg that came out/in from town - about 2 klms away.

He worked on one property during the day and the other at night.

In the centre of the triangle was a big gum tree.

Over a matter of weeks old mate got that tree from all 3 directions and survived to tell the tale.

He was a bas--rd to travel with because he would go to sleep at any time. You had to keep one eye on him and the other on the road.

A few years later he bought a Grader and contracted to the MRD. One night (2AM) I came across the grader parked across the road with old mate asleep standing up at the controls. No warning signs about roadworks and no flashing lights either.

I think he had that sleeping desease.

Oldfulla