When Tim Edwards, Sebastien Rougeaux and two colleagues formed a little company called Seeing Machines in Canberra, little did they know the ground-breaking work they were doing would surpass the research efforts of multi-million dollar research operations elsewhere striving to achieve the same end goal.

Harnessing applied mathematics and robotics, Mr Edwards and his team co-developed the core technology behind the company's success: faceLAB, the world's first automatic, non-contact face- and eye-tracking system.

Essentially it was a camera that "watches" for drowsiness or inattention but the keys to the tech are the inbuilt complex algorithms that help the computer's artificial intelligence understand what it is watching for: the often-tiny triggers to a real-time distraction event evident in the driver's face and eyes.

The algorithm had to be robust enough to cope with face masks, sunglasses, facial expression, behaviour, hats, wigs, jewellery and all the myriad of human behaviours that might indicate distraction.

From studying ocean waves and boat wakes, Tim Roberts and his Seeing Machines co-founders are now riding the next wave of integrated vehicle safety technology rushing to market in the next decade across all types of vehicles.

Given how fatigue and inattention are massive contributors to road trauma worldwide - and even other areas such as aviation and industrial safety - it's vital work.

Seeing Machines' first generation monitoring technology was launched to the mining sector, with Caterpillar as the first major customer. The logic was that if the technology could survive the harshest of conditions down in the mines, it could easily operate in much easier environments above ground.

There are now two versions of the technology, one called Guardian, which can be retro-fitted to existing vehicles and the driver monitoring system, which can be embedded at manufacturer level.

Guardian-equipped vehicles have now travelled 8.6 billion kilometres globally and more than 11.4 million distraction "events" have been recorded. At locations in Australia and US - set up to cater for the two disparate time zones - Seeing Machines can now monitor truck fleets using its technology.

In Europe, safety authorities have mandated driver distraction technology in all new passenger vehicles and heavy vehicles from 2025 onwards.

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In a resolution to the European Parliament last June, it was found that 40 to 60 per cent of all work-related fatalities are road accidents that occur during work or while commuting to work, and described how driver fatigue was "common on EU roads".

Seeing Machines' chief of innovation and science, Mike Lenné, said that as Europe and North America moved towards a mandate for driver monitoring systems in all cars, trucks, vans and buses, Australia "needs to be leading by example".

"We recommend that as a starting point, a retrofit driver monitoring system should be required by all heavy vehicles on Australian roads," he said.

"Ideally, this would be supported by Australian regulators and endorsed by the insurance community with government-funded rebate for participating organisations to encourage and sponsor uptake."

Major truck fleet operators are convinced, with companies like Ron Finemore's, Toll, and Linfox all using driver monitoring technology as a workplace health and health necessity. Owner-operators who change vehicles infrequently and immediately feel the hit of cost increases such as the recent 15 per cent hike in the price of diesel fuel have been slower adopters.

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