Driver found asleep in car in middle of motorway

Truck driver Mark Nicholas was on his regular overnight run from Sydney to Newcastle in New South Wales, Australia, when he found a man sound asleep in his car in the middle of the M1 motorway in a 110km/h (70mph) zone. Mr Nicholas spotted the car just before the Gosford on-ramp at about 1.55am on Tuesday.



“I was halfway up the hill and at first thought the car was just going slowly. As I got closer I realised the car was stopped, so I quickly pulled in front of the vehicle on the shoulder,” said Mr Nicholas, who caught all the action on his dash-cam. After grabbing his torch, Mr Nicholas approached the car which had its engine still running and windscreen wipers on and tried to rouse the man from his impromptu snooze without luck.

“I checked to see the driver was breathing and had a pulse and called Triple-0 then tried to wake him up. But despite the noise, the windows being down and me pushing, prodding and yelling at the man for at least three minutes he was out for the count,” he said. When emergency services arrived at the scene, they eventually revived the man using pressure point techniques, according to Mr Nicholas. “It was then the man seemed to lash out a bit and, according to the paramedics, when he opened his eyes briefly his pupils were the size of dinner plates.


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“At one point they thought the driver was going to run out into the road and then he just then went straight back off to sleep,” he said. “Someone suggested the driver, who had his phone in his lap, may have been coming down off some drugs. I don’t know about that but what is strange is that he obviously had enough wits about him to put the car in neutral and put the handbrake on before nodding off,” Mr Nicholas said. Police said the man was subjected to a breathtest and the test came back clear. The car driver was arrested in order for police to take him to hospital to obtain a urine sample. He has been released without charge, pending the result of the test.