Blake was killed instantly from a brain injury when the family's Ford Territory was hit from behind by a medium-rigid tipper while the car sat queued at a red light.

The shocking incident has devastated parents Camille and Andrew who have vowed to press for changes which could potentially save the lives of others.

"Our goal is to prevent others from suffering the same fate," Andrew Corney told Chief Coroner Lorraine Walker in his opening remarks to the inquest.

Ms Walker chose to hold the hearing not in a court setting but in a meeting room, which gathered together a number of experts and agency representatives.

Blake Corney died in an incident so traumatic that police officers at the scene have since been assigned to different roles in the force. Photographs of Blake's body taken by the forensic team and used as evidence have been sealed by the courts to prevent further trauma.

The truck driver, Akis Emmanouel Livas, is a convicted rapist who had a slew of prior driving offences before this incident. He is serving a three-year-and-three-month jail sentence for culpable driving and will be eligible for parole next May.

Livas, 57 at the time, had renewed his heavy-vehicle driver's licence in the months prior to the crash. He had failed to follow multiple directions from doctors to be tested for sleep apnoea, and had failed to notify his employers of his suspected condition.

He has since been diagnosed with very severe obstructive sleep apnoea by the same specialist he was referred to while serving time in 2017 but failed to follow up with. That specialist noted he should not have been operating a motor vehicle.

Lauchlan McIntosh, a road safety expert who has previously headed up the Australian Automobile Association and the vehicle crash safety testing authority ANCAP told the inquest of the slow-moving, bureaucratic nature of introducing life-saving technologies such as autonomous emergency braking (AEB), which is currently standard on some trucks and not on others.

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AEB uses a combination of sensors and cameras to monitor the view ahead and detect if a frontal collision is imminent. It will automatically apply the brakes if the driver fails to do so and arguably would have prevented the Monaro Highway crash.

AEB is fitted as standard to 66 per cent of all light vehicles but the 460,000-strong national truck fleet is far older, at an average 14.9 years. The Trucking Industry Council estimated that it would take until 2050 for 95 per cent of the fleet to be fitted with AEB.

"Trucks are a poor cousin [to light vehicles] in this [safety] space," Mr McIntosh said.

Mr McIntosh said that under the current processes, AEB is unlikely to be mandated on medium and heavy trucks before November next year.

Respected Canberra forensic clinician Dr Vanita Parekh told the inquest that this case also highlighted the importance of the mandated reporting of medical conditions which affect a person's fitness to drive, provided doctors who gave that information were protected by legislation.

The coroner has requested further submissions, with her preliminary findings to be handed down on August 20.

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