When I was 21 I worked for Virgin airlines as a flight attendant and I would often drive home feeling very tired after an all-night flight from Los Angeles.
On one occasion I was driving my little Peugeot home and I could feel my eyes beginning to close. I was falling asleep at the wheel and every time I looked up the car in front had got closer.
It’s as if you know what is happening but you can’t do anything to stop it — your brain is shutting down. I can remember the sound of the crash and then everything came to a sudden stop.
I gave my details to a young couple in the other vehicle. The damage wasn’t too bad. But I never heard back from that couple — they probably weren’t insured. The following week I was getting on a plane and telling one of the pilots. He said it had happened to him.
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I asked him where he was when he had fallen asleep, expecting him to say it was the A127 or some motorway. He replied: “Coming in over the Isle of Wight.”
Somehow that wasn’t very reassuring to hear.
Alex Best is the former wife of George Best. Her autobiography, Always Alex, is in shops at £17.99