Four point seven million miles. Zero at-fault accidents. Zero tickets. With numbers like that it’s no surprise that company out of Birmingham is being recognized by a supplier who’s connected all across the country .

Darrin J. Lonsdale, a chemical hauler for Action Resources, was just named Samsara’s 2026 U.S. Driver of the Year, beating out every other nominee the telematics giant considered across the entire country. Samsara’s Connected Operations is the same program that just handed hardware to Tyson Foods and Sysco. Alabama took home the top individual honor.

For anyone who hasn’t run into the name, Samsara is the tech company behind a lot of the AI dashcams and connected sensors that fleets are bolting onto trucks and trailers these days. Publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker IOT, Samsara calls itself the pioneer of the Connected Operations Platform, which is a fancy way of saying it builds the cameras, GPS trackers and software that let a safety director see what’s actually happening out on the road instead of finding out about it after the fact.

Tens of thousands of fleets across trucking, construction and logistics use the platform, and once a year Samsara hands out awards to the operations and drivers getting the most out of it.

A Second-Generation Hauler With Nothing Left to Prove

Lonsdale didn’t fall into this business. He’s a second-generation chemical hauler, and his son is now coming up in the profession behind him, which tells you something about how a family feels about the trucking industry after watching it up close for decades. On top of running his own routes, Lonsdale mentors up to 40 regional drivers and works directly with refinery customers to redesign loading setups to all but eliminate chemical spills. That’s not a resume line. That’s a career spent making the job safer for everybody who does it after him.

How Action Resources Built a Safety Culture Drivers Actually Trust

Any fleet can bolt a camera to the dash. What’s harder is getting drivers to trust it. Action Resources Director of Safety Roger Howard put it plainly to Bulk Transporter: “We did not want to start using Samsara in a negative way with our drivers. We wanted to coach drivers, using real dashcam footage, and help them see for themselves how simple it is for them to correct these behaviors.” That approach paid off in a big way last year when AI dashcam footage exonerated a driver after a third party falsely claimed he’d caused a collision, saving the man’s CDL and his livelihood in the process.

The Technology Behind the Trophy

Lonsdale credits Samsara’s real-time alerts for catching a stalled vehicle ahead of him when his CB radio stayed silent, the kind of split-second heads-up that keeps a routine haul from becoming a headline. Birmingham-based Action Resources, which runs 400 tractors and 800 tank trailers out of 14 terminals, has also leaned on the platform’s digital permit tracking (Lonsdale calls it “a lifesaver” for hazmat compliance) and asset tags that led law enforcement straight to a stolen $20,000 piece of equipment.

What This Means for Alabama Trucking

This is exactly the kind of story Alabama Trucking loves to tell: a homegrown carrier investing in real safety technology, and a driver who’s spent a career mentoring the next generation instead of just clocking miles. Action Resources has been hauling chemicals safely out of Birmingham since 1995, and Lonsdale’s award is proof that Alabama companies are setting the safety bar for the rest of the country, not just meeting it.