Shane David Richards, 50, sentenced after falling asleep while driving on D’Aguilar Hwy, causing two-car crash in Moore

A magistrate has slammed a fatigued motorist who fell asleep at the wheel and crashed into another vehicle, telling the 50yo he was lucky he didn’t kill himself or someone else.

A South Burnett driver woke up with his car upside down after falling asleep and crashing into another vehicle along a stretch of road a magistrate said is treated like a scene from the Mad Max movies.

Shane David Richards was on his way to visit his girlfriend in Kilcoy on June 6 when he fell asleep while driving along the D’Aguilar Highway.

The Kingaroy Magistrates Court was told the 50-year-old crashed into another car in Moore, with police arriving at 10.50pm to find his car on its roof and “extensively damaged”.

Richards was represented by lawyer Chris Campbell who said his client’s fatigue was the result of exhaustion.

Mr Campbell said Richards accepted he was too tired to be getting behind the wheel of a car that day, but believed at the time he felt fine to drive.

Magistrate Andrew Sinclair noted Richards’s extensive traffic history and said this was yet another example of a driver putting the public at risk.

“This is a public highway on which the public gets slaughtered by people falling asleep,” Mr Sinclair said.

“There seems to be a large number of people who live in Blackbutt and Kilcoy who drive on that road as if it was scene from Mad Max.

“You're lucky that you’re alive and didn’t kill anyone else.”

Sergeant Stevens said police also found Richards with a plastic toothbrush holder containing a syringe with an unspecified liquid inside, as well as 3g of marijuana back in January.

A month later, another intercept found a clip-sealed box of cut straws Richards told police were used to consume meth.

Richards pleaded guilty to driving without due care and attention, possessing drugs and utensils, contravening a police requirement, and failing to take care with a syringe.

He was fined $1000 and disqualified from driving for three months.