Life and death moments happening every day distracted, inattentive and downright dangerous drivers running the gauntlet,

Truck driver Mick Heffernan has seen it all, but never as bad as it has become over the last six months. To prove his point he put cameras in his 64 tonne B-double.

“You've just got to watch for all the traffic, because when you're 26 metres long, you take a bit of real estate,” Heffernan said.

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In peak hour traffic impatient and distracted drivers play Russian roulette with their lives, and the lives of others: sending messages, or racing to get to a traffic light a few seconds faster.

“It just sort of brings it back to home that nobody's invincible. It doesn't matter how good you are. There's always going to be a circumstance when you've got no control over it,” Heffernan said.

This year is shaping up to be a killer. Already 102 people have lost their lives in just 31 days.

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Beth Roberts should know, though she shouldn't be alive to tell her story of survival.

“I was driving home on the highway, and I went to text a friend to say that I was nearly there, and I looked down for just a second. When I looked back up, I was veered to the left of the road, and I just panicked,” she admitted.

The car stopped metres from a concrete pole after spinning out of control. “I was stupid, and I have definitely learned my lesson,” Roberts said.

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Robert Deane is the operations manager for Beaumont Transport in Brisbane. His fleet has more than a 100 trucks.

“We can be aware of the conditions, but we can't be aware of the people that are on the roads, and what they're going to do,” Deane said.

He's had enough of other drivers putting his employees at risk, expecting truck drivers to be mind readers.

“Trying to predict what people are going to do is just so difficult,” Deane said.

It's why his entire fleet are equipped with cameras, which roll when his trucks do.

Paul Freestone runs and owns a transport company in Melbourne. He warns there's a critical shortage of good truck drivers, which means companies are being forced to employ inexperienced operators.

“A lot of the good ones of course are moving to the mines, Western Australia, Northern Queensland. There’s a lot of good money up there,” he said.

Combine that with impatient and distracted drivers, and it's a recipe for utter carnage.

Four people are killed and 90 are seriously injured every day on Australian roads. Steve Spalding from motoring group RACQ says it’s been a bad start to the year.

“Distractions are a real problem. Nearly everybody carries a mobile phone now, and when it rings there's this tendency to try and pick up the phone,” Spalding said.

“A larger vehicle will always come off best in a crash,” he said.

Experienced drivers like Heffernan are pleading with everyone to take a breath, leave your phones alone, and watch the road.

“You look across and nine times out of ten they've got that phone in their hand, yacking away.”

Story update: We’ve been contacted by the truck drivers filmed overtaking on the Hume highway who say they weren’t speeding or acting illegally and only overtook when it was safe to do so.