Falling asleep at the wheel is a trucker’s worst nightmare. Fatigue comes with the job of driving an eighteen-wheeler, even with rules requiring rest stops and limiting driving hours. Now, new technologies are becoming available to alert drowsy drivers, sometimes even before they feel tired.

Such tech has been slow to enter big rigs’ cabs, but that may be changing. “The trucking industry is more of a wait-and-see group than an early adopter when it comes to technology because they run on thin margins,” said Daniel Bongers, chief technology officer at SmartCap, an Australian company that makes a number of industrial safety products. In addition, the industry, which employs 3.5 million people in the United States, has been focused on a new law requiring the installation of electronic logging devices on most commercial trucks that is meant to help ensure drivers don’t drive more than the legally allotted hours in a day and that they take required breaks.

Biometric sensors are getting lighter, cheaper and more accurate, and new software systems can connect driver and vehicle data. The feedback loops these systems create could make the roads safer for everyone.

Fatigue is highly underreported as an accident cause, said Dr. Bongers, who has a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering. For example, he said, a crash might officially be attributed to roadwork, but fatigue may have slowed the driver’s reaction time and decision-making.