I was left to drive the whole way down to [big city] it took 2 hours, I've hardly ever driven more than 30mins, I told Bob I wasn't comfortable with that and wished to switch halfway. However by the time we were on the actual highway and had not had any where to pull over to swap I was frustrated and he did not seem to care that I was still driving and continued into the city. I was also then left responsible of the clients entire night. Obviously I'm a somewhat experienced TC, the responsibility of the clients is not a huge deal to me. Ultimately it's the STMS job but again, I was fine. However as they were working right on the intersection I was also manning two closure points as well. Not super busy though I'd get 2-5 cars every minute or so, I did have to come around them too so there was only one lane they could access. I did need to run around and adjust it constantly as they were moving a lot, pedestrians were getting too close to their work site etc. Bob and Stan were both posted at the other single closure. Where the clients were not, there were a few clients that were about halfway between us two though. I did ask him why I had been left on my own with them all, and he stated that he doesn't know really, he just thought he'd get in the way down here with the clients. I'd already been up for a while having broken sleep the previous night and morning as I'm sick, probably the sickest I've been in quite a few years. Bob occasionally checked on me via the RT throughout the night. I did see him twice during the night once at about 7 as all the clients were trying to situate themselves on the road, and again at 11.30 where he gave me a 30min break to just rest and use the bathroom. He did offer to stay on my side, this was to when I had asked and he said he'd just get in the way. I said it was fine (by now most traffic had stopped anyways) I was actively standing and monitoring the clients until they all moved amount halfway up the Main Street at about 2am, which at that point I just stayed in the closure still awake but half in and half outside of the truck. I did not fall asleep once I was however so tired that I had alarms going every 4 minutes to make sure. I did not see Bob until about 4.30/5am after the clients left. Me and Stan took the Ute to pack up half the site before coming to the top of the hill and meeting back with him. Stan then said get in the truck if you'd like and have a sleep. So I did. I was in and out of sleeping up till we pulled into [small town midway between out city and work city] sometime after 6am. Where Bob said Stan was tired and asked if I could please swap with her and I thought I was awake enough, cause I had been resting and I figured she'd be more tired than I was. I was doing fine driving until just outside [a small town 30min from our city]. I was somewhat sleepy, I should have said something I truly should have. That's entirely on me for not. But next thing I knew I awoke to a big sound, I was driving up against the wire rails and had fallen asleep while driving.
I am physically fine, Ute was not written off, it's fixable in a few days. Mentally I am all over the place.

There's another part of the driving situation that's relevant. Driving on highways is something I generally find quite anxiety-inducing, and going over the highway I was quite distressed. I was somewhat shaking and pretty much in tears. I'd already told Bob I wasn't comfortable doing the whole drive and wanted to swap halfway, I was not listened to, which upset and frustrated me. I considered asking when we would be swapping back, but I was already very anxious and worried that if I asked, I might be told we weren't swapping and I'd have to drive the rest of the way. I've experienced a mild anxiety attack in the past when I'd been driving alone on highways and felt uncomfortable (save supervisor, same situation saying I was not confident driving there). I'm not saying that caused the crash, because I ultimately fell asleep, but it contributed to how distressed I was during that shift to begin with.

I must admit, I am incredibly worried that I would frustrate Stan and Bob if I'd asked to switch. Because they are constantly together on site and when driving, I did not want to upset them and interfere. That is a me problem, it's something that I think contributed to me not hesitating to say no when swapping driving with her, and also played a part in my reasoning not having said anything when driving down. I had assumed that we did not swap over because Bob would heavily prefer having Stan with him. I did not want to annoy them by asking to swap over. That is on me, I do have a major anxiety disorder, I do my best to manage it when I can. It had never put mine or other peoples lives at risk before now though.

I have never been more upset and frustrated with myself before. I'm also incredibly frustrated with my supervisor for putting me in this so to begin with. I just failed to see how much it was actually effecting me. I'm very unimpressed with myself I feel so stupid 🤦‍♀️

Oh my!

I'm so glad that you are physically okay and so is everyone else!

Driving can be a very scary scenario. I'm sorry this happened to you.

Thank you ❤️

Yes my situation has management re-thinking and changing the way that they will be functioning with the jobs in this city, as we keep picking up work there yet all our crews are here, 2.5 hour drive away and they are not organizing accommodation except for a few individuals who work in that city 99% of the time.

18 hours is well beyond our legal limit. As our trucks are all large, they do need log books. Anyone driving a large vehicle (our traffic trucks) are not legally able to work for longer than 14 hours, and then have a minimum 10 hour stand-down period our STMS should have pulled the pin on that job the moment that he knew he would go over his legal hours. It's not our clients responsibility to monitor that.
Many STMS I have been with in the past have done so no problem, majority of our STMS do their absolute best to stay within 14 hours, and avoid any accidents.
it's highly illegal. Management should have booked us accommodation there too. We weren't ever even meant to have more than a 5 hour stand down period, having to start again at 2pm that same day (although I did not go with, I've had a couple days off).

a co-worker I've been speaking to about it has said that the company could face some insanely serious consequences from worksafe (my countries primary health & safety regulator), and my STMS should really be spoken to regarding blatant favoritism (hardly covered in this incident but them two have a LOT of favoriting beyond just this).

I think it really hit me last night though, as I was thinking about it, that I genuinely could have killed someone. I could have swerved the other way and killed someone. That's absolutely petrifying, I wish I had better judgement than thinking I was perfectly fine to drive. There was a fatal crash on that same road some months ago from someone having fallen asleep while driving. I'm so grateful and lucky I didn't hurt anyone.

I was in a bad state, will leave the nitty gritty details out, and wrecked my vehicle in a former life, single vehicle accident, and I cannot tell you how much energy I have spent agonizing over what could have happened. Speaking from experience, acknowledge it and let it change your future actions, but don't let yourself despair over it. I'm not a commercial driver but I have heard so, so, so many stories of people being overworked and falling asleep behind the wheel. You are certainly not alone. I'm so glad you're okay and hope that your workplace safety improves, because that is not fair to you.

thank ven <3 I'm trying not to dwell on it too much, but it's been a bit hard, I find myself looping back to it 24/7 anyway.

I've spoken to a lot of my co-workers since and many say the same, that they too have fallen asleep while driving and working. I just happen to be the most unlucky one to actually collide with something. They've woken driving half in the ditch, or on the other side of the road. It's scary.

We had an incident where someone (after work & lives out of town, he takes a company Ute for transport) was driving home after work and fell asleep, he ended up in a field and just about straight into a house. Nothing was done about that because it was after work hours.

I just wish I had better processing and judgement. There was no way I would be able to drive I have no idea why I thought I could?? I thought it was like super difficult to fall asleep while driving it's something you have to actively think about. But I think that was just clear show of my fatigue and lack of experience/skill.
there is about 15-20 minutes of that road I don't have a single memory, nothing until I awoke driving along barrier.

My work hasn't really improved the H&S just sent an email about how if we are fatigued we shouldn't be driving (which is crazy because managers will throw a fit when a driver hits their 14 hours and refuses to drive from there), and that we should have called so they could arrange accommodation (is was maybe 5am when we were leaving the city... there's no accommodation planning at 5am...) regardless we still wouldn't even get a 10 hours stand down there's no info regarding that. It's a bit frustrating to be honest, it's not like they name me specifically but they left out a lot, making it sound like totally normal hours, small job, and day-shift. Which it was none of.