Shocking video shows how sleeping driver ploughed his lorry into motorway traffic

This is the shocking moment a lorry driver ploughed into stationary motorway traffic after falling asleep at the wheel.

Mariusz Wlazlo, 47, was jailed for 16 months after he crashed his fully-laden HGV into two cars at 43mph on a busy motorway.

Dashcam footage from the lorry and from a car further up the road shows how Wlazlo, who was an agency driver behind the wheel of an Eddie Stobart vehicle at the time, was speeding up at the time of the impact.

His lorry went into a black Volkswagen Polo, which was then shunted into a silver Toyota Verso before being forced across the other two lanes.

The Toyota spun 360 degrees off the road as the lorry swerved around a third car into the middle of the road, where it came to a halt.

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Footage from the rear of the third car shows the lorry approaching at speed, smashing into the two vehicles as the driver of the car with rear-cam footage manages to drive on to the hard shoulder and out of the way.

Wlazlo was in a 40mph zone of the southbound M6 between junction 8 and junction 7, near Great Barr, Birmingham.

The Polo driver, a woman in her 50s, spent weeks in hospital where she was treated for broken ribs and fractures to vertebrae.

The Toyota driver was released from hospital after treatment for back and neck pain.

The M6 southbound was closed for 90 minutes after the crash, which happened at about 9.40pm on March 15 this year.

At the scene, Wlazlo told police: ‘I think I went to sleep for a moment. I can’t explain as I don’t remember. It was like a dream.’

Wlazlo, who held a full, clean UK driving licence and had no record of motoring offences in his home country of Poland, initially denied causing serious injury by dangerous driving.

He changed his plea to guilty and was jailed for 16 months at Wolverhampton Crown Court last Wednesday.

Wkazlo, of Speke, Liverpool, was also banned from driving for three years and eight months, and ordered to take an extended re-test.

PC Gareth Phillips, of the Central Motorway Police Group, said: ‘The collision has had a devastating impact on the victim in the Polo.

‘Although she has made a physical recovery, she now feels unable to drive on the motorway.

‘Wlazlo was clearly not paying attention and indeed was accelerating into stationary traffic at the time of impact.

‘It shows just how important it is to keep fully focussed on the road and surrounding conditions, and to always abide by the speed limit as displayed on gantry signs.

‘If the speed he had been travelling had been any higher, this collision would likely have had fatal consequences.’