The integration of robotics and automation technologies in autonomous driving laboratories (SDLs) can pose additional safety challenges compared to traditional laboratories. This paper presents Chemist Eye, a distributed safety monitoring system designed to enhance situational awareness in SDLs. Chemist Eye integrates multiple stations equipped with RGB, depth, and infrared cameras to monitor for incidents, PPE compliance, and fire hazards. Through visual-language model (VLM)-based decision-making, it detects potential hazards, moves the mobile robot away from the hazard area, sounds an alarm, and provides immediate notification to laboratory personnel when necessary. Tests in a real-world SDL environment demonstrated safety hazard detection and decision-making performances of 97% and 95%, respectively.