The Hitcher: Inceptioning while I've been drinking?

I'm watching The Hitcher again, and I know that the film is supposed to be a little stylised and require some suspension of disbelief, but I wonder at how John is somehow in all the places Jim runs away to, and after watching the film a few times in the past, I wonder if Jim is dead, since all the events of the film happen after he falls asleep at the wheel.


( spoilers for the rest of the film )