A Nigerian-British taxi driver has been jailed for six years in the United Kingdom after investigators found that he had driven for about 53 hours over three days before falling asleep at the wheel and killing another motorist.
Kolawole Erunkulu, 45, was driving on the A23 in Merstham, Surrey, shortly before 6:30 a.m. on August 17, 2025, when his Audi crossed the carriageway and entered a roadside layby.
Philip Dray, 59, had pulled his Volkswagen into the layby to take a break and was opening the driver’s door when Erunkulu’s car struck him. Dray died at the scene.
The evidence that led to Erunkulu’s conviction was not based only on the aftermath of the crash. Detectives examined footage from an interior camera in his car alongside records obtained from his employers.
The material showed a pattern of sustained driving and limited rest in the days before the collision.
The 53-hour working pattern
Erunkulu had driven for approximately 53 hours during the three days before the crash.
His longest rest period was about seven hours, while other breaks were approximately four hours and two hours. Immediately before the collision, he had spent roughly 12 hours working as a taxi driver, taking only minor breaks.
The interior-camera footage captured what police described as a “microsleep” — a brief episode of sleep lasting seconds during which the brain is not processing information normally.
During one such episode, the Audi veered across the road and into the layby where Dray was standing. The car continued for about another 10 seconds before Erunkulu stopped at the next layby.
The case therefore turned on something less visible than speeding or alcohol: a driver whose capacity to remain awake had deteriorated to the point where a few seconds of lost consciousness became fatal.
A legal gap around taxi drivers
The case also exposes a less obvious feature of Britain’s transport system.
The rules governing drivers’ hours are not uniform across the road-transport industry. Large commercial vehicles and many passenger vehicles are subject to detailed limits on driving time and rest. But taxi drivers can fall outside those regimes.
Transport for London’s taxi-driver handbook states that self-employed taxi drivers can choose their working hours and that there are no rules limiting the number of hours they can work in a day or week.
The same handbook warns drivers to take regular breaks and says driving while tired greatly increases the risk of a collision.
That distinction matters in a case involving someone who was working commercially but was not carrying a passenger when the crash occurred.
The UK government has separately recognised the fatigue risks associated with taxi and private-hire work.
A government working-group report noted that the sector had historically been associated with long working hours and questioned why taxi and private-hire drivers could potentially work for unlimited periods while other professional drivers faced statutory limits.
The issue is not simply whether a driver has technically breached a prescribed number of hours.
Britain’s Highway Code advises drivers not to begin a journey when tired and recommends a minimum 15-minute break after every two hours of driving.
The economics of staying on the road
For drivers who depend on fares for income, the ability to work longer can also mean the ability to earn more.
That creates a difficult trade-off in taxi and private-hire work: the same flexibility that allows a driver to choose when to work can also make it possible to accumulate long periods behind the wheel without the kind of centrally scheduled rest periods imposed on other categories of commercial drivers.
The problem becomes particularly acute during overnight and early-morning work.
Britain’s Health and Safety Executive identifies the period between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m. as one of the periods when sleep-related incidents are most likely to occur and advises employers to consider fatigue when designing work schedules.
Erunkulu’s crash occurred shortly before 6:30 a.m., after his extended period of driving.
Police said the preceding work pattern had created a substantial “sleep debt”.
Six years in prison
Erunkulu, who is jointly British and Nigerian, was charged with causing death by dangerous driving in March 2026 and pleaded guilty in June.
He was sentenced at Guildford Crown Court on August 25 to six years in prison. He was also disqualified from driving for eight years and will have to undergo an extended retest if he seeks to regain his licence.
The court heard that the sentence would have been nine years had the case gone to trial.
Judge Lees said the footage showed that Erunkulu was extremely tired and had continued driving despite that condition.
Because he was working commercially, the court also considered the risk posed to passengers and other road users.
Surrey Police’s Serious Collision Investigation Unit said fatigue can reduce alertness and reaction ability, particularly during the early hours when the body’s natural drive to sleep is strongest.
A driver who stopped to rest became the victim
Dray had done what tired motorists are advised to do: he pulled off the road and stopped for a break.
His family described him as dependable, gentle and caring. His sister said he was known as someone others could rely on, while his partner described him as her “cheerleader, advisor, partner, and best friend”.
The circumstances of his death have made the family’s loss particularly painful. Dray was standing beside a vehicle he had deliberately taken off the road when he was struck by a driver whose exhaustion had already compromised his ability to control his own vehicle.
His family agreed to the release of the interior-camera footage to draw attention to the dangers of driving while fatigued.
The footage turns the case from an abstract warning into a visible sequence: a professional driver struggling to remain awake, a momentary loss of consciousness and a vehicle drifting towards a man who had stopped to rest.
For taxi and private-hire drivers, the lesson is straightforward but difficult to enforce: a licence does not make an exhausted driver safe, and flexibility over working hours does not remove the physical need for sleep.
In Erunkulu’s case, the consequences of continuing to drive were measured not only in six years in prison, but in the death of a man who had pulled over simply to take a break.
