AskTheTrucker.com was created by Allen Smith in 2007. He put out some excellent content about podcasts that help pull back the veil on the trucking industry. This site was one of the original inspirations for our first site on trucking, TruckDriversSalary.com, after hearing Allen speak about the bait and switch recruiting at several large OTR carriers.
I purchased the domain in the summer of 2023 and hope to continue his vision of advancing the trucking industry with hard truths.
History
Allen Smith is a 40-year veteran of the trucking industry, many of those years spent as an over the road driver. He has been an owner operator, a company driver, operations manager, and has owned and operated a successful cross country moving company.
He wrote his first book, “The Truth About Trucking” in the year 2000 in order to enlighten and share the reality of OTR trucking for those who are entering trucking.
He started his first website Truth About Trucking in 2006 and shortly after founded the AskTheTrucker Blog in 2007. In a desire to reach more people, Allen started his Blog Talk Radio ( Truth About Trucking “Live”).
The show has had many popular guests. One of the most memorable and influential guests that Allen invited on the show was Jeffrey Caldwell, Chief of Communications for VDOT. Donna had sent Mr Caldwell an email invite at 11pm the evening before the scheduled BTR broadcast. Early the following morning ,(the day of the show) Mr Caldwell accepted the invitation, eager to participate and help resolve the problems that truckers were being faced with. This was during the time when Virginia was closing down many rest areas and at the same time enforcing an old law of “ 2 hour parking” This created not just unsafe highway conditions by having tired drivers on the road, but was forcing these drivers to break the 11 hour HOS laws. It was during this show with guests Fred and JB Schaffner ( who together worked relentlessly to have the 2 hour parking law abolished) proved that the vision for positive and effective change was indeed a possibility to achieve for the benefit of the American driver.
Allen has started the petition against the unfair and abusive practices of the DAC report employed by several companies against drivers.
Allen has been a strong supporter for Jason’s Law, HR 2156, which would ensure the need for more safe truck parking. The bill was presented by Congressman Paul Tonko in 2009, who also was a memorable and influential guest on Allen’s Blog Talk Radio Show, “Truth About Trucking Live”. Allen and Donna worked with Hope Rivenburg (widow of murdered trucker Jason Rivenburg for whom the bill was named) and Congressman Tonko, playing a major part of the call to action for the National Call-In day to Congress. We are thrilled to say the 4 year battle has been won and that Jason’s Law is now in the Transportation Bill, MAP 21 as of 2012, ensuring more safe truck parking for the professional driver.
In May of 2009, Allen was contacted by producer Robin Stein of the popular Dan Rather Reports Investigative television show. The Dan Rather group was conducting an investigation on CDL training schools. After a series of lengthy interviews, Allen directed Robin to Desiree Wood, who herself had contacted Allen a year prior because of her own horrific experience that she had endured during her CDL training. (Desiree has her Student Trucker Story on the AskTheTrucker blog which we encourage you to read). The rest was history as Dan Rather conducted a 3 part investigation of the corruption existing within many of the trucking schools and companies offering CDL training.
Desiree was featured in the first episode, “Queen of the road”, and Allen was an invited audience participant speaking about the problems with CDL training for the second episode, “Truck Talk”. The 3rd episode aired not too long after, “Mind Your Loan Business”, which discussed much of the deceit existing among many CDL training facilities in further detail.
Government regulations, starting with CSA and continuing on into EOBR’s, Hours of Service regulations, possible sleep apnea laws, speed limiters, the “driver shortage”, NAFTA, and of course the inadequacy of the present CDL training for schools and company programs have been a few of the targeted focuses recently.
Allen and Donna have worked closely with Truckers Against Trafficking to educate the trucking community about how they can be a part of the solution to end the nightmares and atrocities that are occurring in our own country, many times in truck stops and travel plazas.
Allen has also been in many publication including; Truckers News, Overdrive Magazine, The Examiner, Land Line Magazine, Challenge Magazine and Peoples World. He and Donna were On Aprils 2010 Cover for the feature story, “Trucker Network” in Truckers News.
Allen is an advocate for the professional driver and continues his original objective to guide and teach CDL students and new drivers how to be successful in an industry which has many obstacles and questionable tactics to endure and overcome. He is also an advocate for safety and has over 3 million safe miles under his belt
Since the 2 conventions, Allen and Donna are known for utilizing Social Media as a powerful tool to reach thousands with a message. He and Donna created their “Circle of Trust”, maintaining Trust and Transparency, in order to bring others on board with their message and/or quality product or service to the trucking community. Their continually growing Social Media base is expected to double in 2015.
Allen enjoys, writing, flying, playing guitar, writing songs, and martial arts. He’s a father, son, husband, grandfather, and a loyal and trustworthy friend to all who know him.