I’m not a great sleeper, even when I’m in my bed, it’s dark and quiet, and I’m tired, so I’ve never worried about falling asleep at the wheel, but it happened one time. I was around 30 and between marriages. I had gone to a couple back-to-back parties and had been awake 30+ hours. Driving home on the freeway going 70, I got woken up by my tires going over the lane marker dots. I couldn’t have been asleep for more than a moment but it scared the complete crap out of me. I drove home with the window down (it was cold out), the stereo up, and smelling like adrenaline. I’ve never pushed it like that again.

(Update: changed wording & inserted the missing “always”, I just wanted to warn people of other situations, not rule out it can happen like this - there just might be no warning at all when falling asleep while driving )

Falling asleep while driving doesn’t always work like that. Your brain can also just shut off.

Many years ago I was going the Autobahn from Munich to Nuremberg - going with 150 km/h, 95 mph or so.

I was driving in the middle lane of 3, it was Friday early evening (around 6) and still daylight.

As said I was on the middle lane, low traffic (fortunately!) and suddenly I was on the left lane.

I was just out for a few seconds, enough time for the car to wander over to the left lane.

That probably was my closest situation to dying in traffic.

(I switched my schedule to not drive 2 hours after work THAT DAY)

Pull over and stop. It’s not worth it.

However, if you decide not to: simply jerk off while driving. It works. 🤷‍♂️