Episode 57: Conversation with Akeem Hicks

Akeem Hicks: I would say construction zones are the most dangerous place on the interstate. Including cars, I think everybody should slow down. Everybody should really respect the construction area because the road, it’ll be uneven. But imagine if you feel a pull in your car, it’s like double or triple that in your diesel, so it’ll lean over. It’ll feel like the truck is flipping.

David Craig – Host: I’m attorney David Craig, managing partner and one of the founders of Craig, Kelley & Faultless. For over 35 years, I’ve dedicated my career to helping individuals and families who have been seriously injured or lost loved ones in devastating semi-truck, large truck, and other commercial motor vehicle accidents.

When tragedy strikes, life can feel chaotic, overwhelming, and uncertain. Many people don’t even know where to begin or what questions to ask. That’s why I created After the Crash, a podcast designed to empower you with the knowledge and resources you need to navigate these challenging times.

In each episode, I sit down with experts, professionals, victims, and others involved in truck wreck cases to give you insight, guidance, and practical advice. Together, we’ll help you understand your rights, protect your family, and move forward. This is After the Crash.

David Craig – Host: All right, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another episode of After the Crash, the podcast. I’m attorney David Craig, the host of the podcast. And today we have Akeem Hicks as our guest. Akeem is a truck driver. So, what better person to have on a podcast about truck accidents than a truck driver, a professional truck driver, who unfortunately also has been in an accident. So Akeem, welcome to the podcast.

Akeem Hicks: What’s going on everybody? Thank you for having me.

David Craig – Host: And so Akeem, tell us a little bit about how long you’ve been driving a truck.

Akeem Hicks: I’ve been driving professionally for five years over the road. Been in some of the worst storms, high wind, extreme traffic, been in a lot of situations, so pretty seasoned.

David Craig – Host: How big area have you driven? I mean, over the road, so what kind of areas have you driven in?

Akeem Hicks: I was running a team in the beginning with me and my cousin. So, we were running from the southeast region to the western region. So we would go from anywhere from South Carolina to California, Washington state. So we pretty much… We touched a lot of states, majority of them.

David Craig – Host: A lot of folks out there that are listening to this podcast, they don’t know what it takes to be a professional truck driver. And they don’t realize that you have to have a CDL and that you have to pass a test. Tell us a little bit about that.

Akeem Hicks: All right. So yeah, you have to pass a test in order to… I went to Missouri, Prime Inc., number one refrigerated unit in commercial trucking, and we went from there. We did it like two weeks for the test and then you go over the… It’s three parts. You do the test, then you go over the road, and then you come back. You have to do the pre-trip. Pre-trip. That’s the most challenging part, that pre-trip.

David Craig – Host: Well, and I know… So then you have to study up on the CDL manual and you take your test and you got to be able to drive. I mean, a lot of folks don’t know how challenging it is to drive an 18-wheeler.

Akeem Hicks: It’s very challenging.

David Craig – Host: It’s tough.

Akeem Hicks: Very challenging, very challenging.

David Craig – Host: I took some of our attorneys out to Montana and I thought… Here, we do… We handle truck cases. We represent the victims of semi-truck wrecks, but a lot of us had never driven a semi. And so I think you need to go out and drive a semi, talk, work with professional truckers so you can understand a little bit more about what’s involved. And I tell you what, I had a tough time. I’m backing an 18-wheeler. I was trying to back it up. Man, it was tough. I never did get it right.

Akeem Hicks: Man, some of those spots you go to, man, the spots be so tight, you be like, “Dog…” I have to ask people, “Hey, did anybody get in?” And they be like, “All the time.” And I’m like, “Okay, I know I could do it.” Then you have to… It’s like, you got to have a crazy confidence out there, too.

David Craig – Host: Yeah. So how you and I met was that you hired our law firm to represent you in an accident that happened on I-65 with another semi, and this accident was in a construction zone. Tell me, just tell us a little bit about that and… Because I see so many accidents in construction zones.

Akeem Hicks: Yes sir. So, I would say construction zones are the most dangerous place on the interstate, and, including cars, I think everybody should slow down. Everybody should really respect the construction area because the road, it’ll be uneven, it’ll cause…

And it’ll sharpen the curve, so the cars will pull. So imagine if you feel a pull in your car, it’s like double or triple that in your diesel. So it’ll lean over, it’ll feel like the truck is flipping.

I think that, even professional drivers, I think we all need to respect the construction areas more. That’s how it happened with my accident, is just not respecting the construction areas.

David Craig – Host: Yeah. And this case was another semi. You’re on the left passing, and another semi hits a construction zone vehicle and then hits…

Akeem Hicks: That’s correct.

David Craig – Host: … and comes over and hits you and knocks you off the road.

Akeem Hicks: And it happened so fast. So, I was traveling about 65, 66 maybe and all I heard was the sound, boom! And then he had done jumped in my lane, there was nothing I could do. So once he hit the truck…

I’m pretty heavy at the time. I’ve probably got like 30,000 behind me. So I’m probably like 50,000 pounds total and he just… I mean, it jumped my truck, right. I had to fight it, I’m grabbing the wheel, and we went into the median and it popped three lines, but one line stopped the diesel truck, man, by the grace of God.

So, in Florence, where I’m from, in the South Carolina area, they have only three lines. In the Columbus, Indiana, area they have four lines. I think that everybody should have four lines.

David Craig – Host: So, folks, if you’re listening, those are the steel lines that are in the median that stop traffic from going through and coming up on the other side, where you’d have a head-on collision.

I’ve been doing this for 38 years, and we used to have a lot more of the country that had no lines or barriers to keep you from going across. I, unfortunately, have represented people who got hit head-on from somebody who lost control and crossed through the median.

But where Akeem was, they had four lines, and what he’s saying is three of them break, but one of them kept him from going into the oncoming traffic, which could have been a lot worse than what you had.

Akeem Hicks: Yes, sir. Because there was a diesel truck and a car coming on the other side. So, I was headed straight for them.

David Craig – Host: Yeah, that’s scary. Construction zones, I mean, I see those all too often, and unfortunately a lot of wrecks I’ve seen where people are actually killed when construction zones, traffic starts to back up. And it slows up, kind of funneling into…

Maybe they shut off one lane, and you’re kind of funneling down, and traffic starts to back up and I’ve had way too many semis…. I had one down in Kentucky where the semi driver had his truck on cruise control and he’s just going on down the road, and then all of a sudden traffic is backed up, and he doesn’t stop, and he kills seven people.

But I see that all the time where, on the highways, you’re traveling along and you’re just keeping pace, but then all of a sudden traffic stops for some reason or slows up. Then a lot of times you have wrecks behind that slow-up. So, tell us a little bit about… So, when you’re in a semi, so let’s say construction zone, so what you’re saying is slow down, number one?

Akeem Hicks: Slow down, for sure.

David Craig – Host: Number two, you’ve got to make sure that you’re aware of what’s going on around you. You’ve got blind spots in those trucks, right?

Akeem Hicks: Yes, sir. On the right side, you really can’t see. You have to use the front mirror. I try to use all my mirrors on my blind spot. So, on the right side, if I’m getting over to the left and I have to get back over to the right, I would look at the front of the truck.

At the very front is the mirror that you can see; it’s the mirror at your passenger door, looking down. There is a small mirror down at the bottom to your right. I would look up, make sure I check all three. I make sure I don’t run over anybody. I don’t want to hurt anybody. I want everybody to go home safely.

David Craig – Host: Yeah. And also, when I was out in Montana and I was riding along with some professional truckers, I was shocked about how many cars cut in front of you. The truck driver I was riding with would leave distance, leave room between his truck and the vehicle in front of him. And every time he did that, it seemed like, a car would zip in there.

Akeem Hicks: Yes sir. Yes sir. And the worst thing I think that cars don’t understand is, if I’m climbing up a hill, you’re going to see me going really slow. You don’t think that when I get to the top of that hill and I come down, it’s going to speed up. It’s going to speed up really fast.

A lot of cars, they tend to try to pass another car and get out of the way of the car coming behind them. So, they’ll jump in front of the diesel truck that’s going downhill, and then you have to add… So, it’ll burn your brakes up. So, you have to use your Jake and stab your brakes, and I don’t think people understand how dangerous that situation right there is.

David Craig – Host: Yeah. I think that one of the things we do, we’ve actually even put out a video on blind spots and on stopping distances. Because I don’t think people realize how much distance it takes to stop an 18-wheeler. They’re used to their cars, and they’re used to being able to stop and… And in a diesel, you got a whole different type of brake system.

Akeem Hicks: Yes sir.

David Craig – Host: There’s a little bit of a lag time.

Akeem Hicks: Yes sir. Yes sir. A lot. A lot. And when you’re talking about stopping just on a regular road, we’re talking about maybe a football field or something like that. So, if you’re going downhill, that just triples.

David Craig – Host: Yeah. So, what’s the hardest thing about being a professional truck driver?

Akeem Hicks: The hardest thing, I would say, is not being distracted. It’s full of distractions you’re going to have. You have got to follow your GPS, your phone’s going to go off… It’s just a lot of distractions, and you have to stay level-headed and try to stay off your phone as much as possible. I would think that would be the hardest thing.

David Craig – Host: But being on the road, that’s tough; that would be tough not to be distracted or be tired. I mean, some people talk about… I just interviewed somebody, she was going to have to drive two hours back and forth, and that seems like a long time. It is like, okay, driving two hours, paying attention, being alert, but you guys drive longer than that.

Akeem Hicks: Yeah, 10 hours in a day. I was doing like nine to 11 hours, and sometimes when you go to a shipper and they’re behind, you’ll be up 14 hours. You have to turn around and do it again. So, that tiredness turns into fatigue if you’re not managing your sleep properly.

David Craig – Host: Yeah, that’s got to be tough. So, one other thing I’ve heard that’s tough about trucking today is finding places to pull off and park because those long hour days you can pull off and you get a break. I tell you what, you run into that, you run into problems finding places to park?

Akeem Hicks: Yes sir. Yes sir. So with trucking, how I would try to do, I try to get as close to my destination as possible. And now, sometimes that stuff can backfire on you because you’ll get to your spot, close to it, and then you run into a traffic jam and there’s nowhere to pull over and you have to go 10 more miles just to get to an exit where you can pull over.

Then you have to find an exit where there’s enough shoulder room so you can be off the road and not be a hazard to others. It most definitely can be challenging, especially in those busy city areas, New Jersey, that don’t really have shoulders, California, things of that sort from the east to the west coast.

David Craig – Host: And are some states worse than others?

Akeem Hicks: Oh, yeah. Yes sir. Yes sir. California, New Jersey, Atlanta, Georgia, stuff like that is crazy out there. So, when you get in South Carolina and North Carolina, it’s real country so you can pull off the road in those country states. Those are the best states to travel where you can manage your clock better.

David Craig – Host: What’s about bad weather, like winter? The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations say if your visibility is affected or your traction is affected, you’re supposed to use extreme caution. And the CDL manual says decrease your speed by a third if you’re on wet pavement and 50% if you’re driving on packed snow, and if you’ve got ice you need to get off as soon as you can.

Akeem Hicks: Yes sir.

David Craig – Host: I would imagine, though, you guys have pressure to get from one place to the next place. You have got to deliver your load.

Akeem Hicks: That’s correct.

David Craig – Host: What kind of challenges have you faced with bad, adverse weather?

Akeem Hicks: I went through Oklahoma. It was a blizzard; it was a winter storm in Oklahoma. I mean, it was so much snow, you couldn’t even see the line. You couldn’t see… You had to stay in one lane. I don’t like stopping because I feel like we could just go slow and steady. We can get through it, you know what I mean? But if it’s ice, then of course you have to pull over.

But the worst situation I have ever been in was in Nebraska on I-80. It was a blizzard in January. Snow, ice… There’s snow blowing from one side of the street all the way to the other side of the interstate. Just slow and steady though, man, just slow and steady.

A lot of people passed me in those moments where I felt like I was the tortoise and I was like, “Man, I kind of need to speed up.” But you get an hour down the street, and they’re jackknifed or they’re turned over. Just take your time, people. If anybody is in a rush, just slow down, let them go ahead. There’s a good chance you’ll pass them.

David Craig – Host: Yeah. One of the things I’ve seen over the years is, it seems like I’ve seen more aggressive drivers both in cars and in trucks…

Akeem Hicks: Yes sir.

David Craig – Host: … where people are just more aggressive. They’re flipping people off, they’re riding people’s bumpers, they’re zipping in front of them, they’re brake checking. I mean, have you-

Akeem Hicks: Okay. Yes sir. That happens a lot in New Mexico. Once you get over the New Mexico area, they get really aggressive.

David Craig – Host: Is that right?

Akeem Hicks: Yeah, very aggressive. They’re probably some of the most… They’ll get right there, [use their] diesel trucks to get on the bumper of other diesel trucks and force them to get over in out the left lane and into the right lane.

It just seems like everybody in the rush, is just like… Because everything is more right now, right now America. So, it’s like everybody is trying to get to where they need to be — fast. They’re not caring about their lives, or the next person’s lives, or the weather condition, and I think we just need to take a step back and slow down.

David Craig – Host: Do you ever see aggressive truckers that are just like… they think they know more than everybody else on the road and that they own the road, or is that just something that I imagine?

Akeem Hicks: No, sir. We call those “super truckers,” and a lot of times you call the OG truckers and they’ve been out here 30 and 40 years, but hey, you can be humble. Mother nature will humble you.

David Craig – Host: There’s a lot of stuff going on in the trucking world. I mean, one of the things I’ve seen here recently is they’re trying to start paying truckers overtime. A lot of people probably don’t realize truckers don’t necessarily get paid by the hour. They get all the rest…

Most people, if they work over 40 hours, they get time and a half, they get double time on the holidays, on weekends. You guys don’t get overtime or double time. You guys are exempt from that. What do you think about laws that might change that? Is that good or bad?

Akeem Hicks: I think it’d be great because there are some people that drive by the hour, and a lot of times there’s stuff there that they drive by the mile. So, if the truck is sitting, and they’re sitting there at the shipper for three hours, they didn’t get any pay because they didn’t move. But they were up for 14 hours that day. I think there are a lot of ways we can make things better. And, over time, yes sir, I agree with that. I agree with that.

David Craig – Host: Some of the things that seemed like to me, you start paying people overtime, paying for the time they sit, then that would help. Also, giving them places to park. Throughout the country, they’ve got to figure out how to let people park safe, so you’re not parked on the side of the road where it might be dangerous or you park… I mean, I’ve seen truckers get their shipments robbed because they park in bad areas.

Akeem Hicks: Right.

David Craig – Host: I think parking, increasing parking for truckers, would be helpful. What about the new technology? Down in Arizona and Texas, they’re running trucks now without you drivers. They’re running-

Akeem Hicks: What?

David Craig – Host: … autonomous truck driver, trucking. Now, most of them have a driver in the cab, but now they’re actually testing them with just driverless trucks, with just pure computers. What do you think about that, as a trucker?

Akeem Hicks: As a trucker, I think there’s a lot of situations where you would need an actual person there… Because, say for instance, right Dave, I’m riding through the snow and I’m using my cruise control, but if enough snow collects in the front of that diesel truck, it’ll cut that sensor off.

So, is there anything like… that type of thing we would be dealing with, where a sensor maybe cut off and now the truck malfunctions and potentially kills seven families or something like that? I think there’s some trial and error, and I just hope it’s less error.

David Craig – Host: Yeah. I think one of the things is, obviously, you guys are professional truck drivers, you have to go through… You get trained, you get tested, and then you get experience by getting on the road. There’s so many times…

I’ve represented truckers before, and they say they’ll be driving along, and it’s that quarter, it’s getting cold, but you don’t know if there’s any ice, you don’t see. It doesn’t look like it’s ice on the road yet. But they’ll watch their mirrors, and they’ll look at their mirrors and they’ll see icicles starting to form on the mirrors. So, they realize, “Okay, hey, that temperature’s getting cold enough, I better slow up a little bit.”

Akeem Hicks: Yes sir.

David Craig – Host: Computer, how’s the computer going to know that when it goes from ice to… from wet pavement to ice all of a sudden? And you guys make judgment calls all the time on, “Okay, how slow do I need to be going?”
Whereas a computer-generated truck, is it going to make those right decisions? And then what if a truck breaks down? When a truck breaks down, you know that you have to get out and put your flares or your triangles out, but there ain’t nobody in that truck. It’s a driverless truck. How’s that going to happen?

Akeem Hicks: Just to piggyback off that real quick, right, I come up with some survival tactics because when you are out there you got yourself, and you’re talking to yourself a lot.

When it gets to like 16 degrees or 19 degrees, anything under 20, I would look over at the grass, see if I could see any grass. If I could see any grass, then it lets me know the snow is kind of old. But if I can’t see any grass poking out, that lets me know it’s fresh snow.

As I’m going down the street, I check my rearview mirror to see if there’s any mist coming off my tires. That lets me know that the road is not icy. This is the most important thing, David, looking across the street, the people, they’re coming from where I’m going. So, if those people across the street are driving real slow, then that lets me know I need to slow down because there must be ice where they’re coming from. And that’s where I’m going. So, I would slow down.

Like you said, how would a diesel truck that doesn’t have a professional in a cab with survival tactics… You know what I mean? How do they go about that? Do they just keep going fast, at the same speed, and hit the ice and start sliding at 68 miles per hour or something? That’s catastrophic right there.

David Craig – Host: Yeah. Well, I think they have got a lot of work to do before they can do that. One of the things that I see is speed limiters. Up in Canada, truckers have speed limiters. Trucks can’t go over a certain speed.

Here in the states, there’s some trucking companies, now, that are already running trucks that have speed limiters that limit the speed. I know with respect to truckers that there’s opinions on both sides. Some like it and don’t mind it; others think it’s terrible and it’s dangerous. What do you think?

Akeem Hicks: If I’m a business owner, yeah, I probably would like it, but after the kinks get worked out because right now, I just don’t believe in it enough. Right now, I just think it’s more of a hazard. Until they can assure the people that these types of things won’t happen because of this, then I’ll probably be more for it. But right now, I’m probably… I’m going to lean more towards not being for it.

David Craig – Host: So, rather than a truck having a speed limiter that says you can only go 65 or 70 miles an hour… The trucking companies, they like it because it — or some of the trucking companies like it — because it saves gas, saves money on gas.

Some truckers I’ve talked to say, “Well, no, I know I should be able to pass. If I’m in traffic, I need to accelerate. And I don’t want a truck that can’t accelerate.” But other truckers are looking at it and say, “You know what?”

Another thing they say is it will cause traffic jams. If everybody’s running 65 miles an hour, then all your trucks are going to be blocking traffic because none of the cars are going speed limit. Cars are just flying by.

Akeem Hicks: That’s why you have to plan your paths. If you’re going 65 miles per hour, you don’t just try to jump in front of any… because… All right, so if somebody is in front of me, and they’re going 64 and I’m going 65, I’m not going to really be in a rush to pass then because it’s not going to make my arrival to my destination so significant that I have to get past them. You know what I’m saying?

Then, after a while, I have to pull over and use the bathroom. That’s why I think you have to plan your passing. Anytime there’s no cars around, and you can go around that truck that’s going 64 because you know it’s going to take maybe five minutes to get around them.

David Craig – Host: One of the other things: emergency braking. My SUV, if I come up on something and I’m distracted, I’m looking out the side window, my truck will just brake automatically-

Akeem Hicks: Yes sir.

David Craig – Host: … from rear end. Now that technology, they have got some of that on some of the newer tractors, that technology. Have you ever driven a truck with that, with the emergency braking?

Akeem Hicks: Yes sir. Yes sir.

David Craig – Host: What do you think about that?

Akeem Hicks: I like it because stuff can happen so fast in real time. I love it because if you’ve got the cruise [control] and say you got enough safe distance, safe travel distance, and the car ahead of you hits the brake to go off on the exit, but you’re not looking, you just grabbed your phone right quick, try to get your GPS right or something, and you looking down, it’s going to go ahead and hit that brake for you so you can go ahead and get aware. Whereas, if you didn’t have any awareness and you just ran into the back of that car. So, I love that. I love that. It’s very safe.

David Craig – Host: For people that are on the roadway that don’t know what it’s like to be in a semi, what advice do you give them? How should cars drive safer around semis? What can they do? What can car drivers do to help ensure that they get where they’re going and the truckers get to where they’re going safely?

Akeem Hicks: Anytime a diesel truck is making a right turn, they’ll be in the left lane for a little while. As a car, we need to give them enough time to signal and get over in the right lane. That’s one.

Another thing I would say is: going downhill, try not to jump in front of a diesel truck unless you have enough space. If you’re coming up on a diesel truck, and you need to pass them, try to pass them going in the left lane where they can see you better. They have more visibility.

And another thing I think that’s very important. For a diesel truck, if I’m coming down the road and I’m in the right lane, and there’s a car off to the side of the road, and they have their flashers blinking, we try to get over into the left lane. As a diesel truck, as a professional driver, it allows the people on the shoulder… They might be changing a tire or anything and that diesel, when it comes past you, like whew, that wind has everything rocking.

So, we try to jump over in the left lane, and a lot of times cars don’t understand that we’re just trying to get over for the safety of the people that’s on the side of the road, and we’re going to jump right back over into the right lane so you can speed on by. As a car, I think you should just give people more time, the truck drivers more time, that just get over, so everybody can be safe.

David Craig – Host: Anything else you want to add or any questions you have for me?

Akeem Hicks: No, I don’t have anything I want to add. Okay, look, I got another thing, right? If you have two diesel trucks driving side by side each other, they’re pretty much going the same speed. I think the person in the right lane should just go ahead and hit the brakes and allow them to go ahead and get over.

I have seen a lot of road rage happen from this, a lot of traffic jams, and I just think it was just one person just allowed the other person to go. Free up the lane. It’s a dance. You want to keep the rhythm flowing.

David Craig – Host: I’ll add to that, I’ll kind of jump on that because I’ve seen cars get in situations where there’s road rage between a car and a semi-tractor trailer, and that’s not a good situation.

Akeem Hicks: No.

David Craig – Host: Car, you ain’t going to win.

Akeem Hicks: No. Diesels run the road.

David Craig – Host: That’s just dumb. I don’t care what the trucker did, I don’t care if the trucker cut you off. I don’t care if the truck did… Whatever it is, it is not worth dying for. Whether you’re in a truck or whether you’re in a car, don’t get in a road rage [collision].

But I’m seeing a lot more of that, and I’ve seen truckers… I’ve seen them chase down cars, go through a median and go after a car to hit them, and actually hit them. But it was all these people who were battling along the highway, flipping each other off, brake checking, doing all this kind of stuff.

I’m just telling you, if you’re in a car and you get… First of all, if you’ve got that much rage, you shouldn’t be driving. But, regardless, don’t ever do that with an 18-wheeler.

Akeem Hicks: No.

David Craig – Host: No, that’s just not smart.

Akeem Hicks: It’s not smart at all, man.

David Craig – Host: So, how was my law firm? My law firm represented you in your injury case. Did we do a good job?

Akeem Hicks: Man, you did a great job. Excellent. Terrific. Hey, I love everybody that I came in contact with. Everybody took good care of me. Y’all were very thorough with what to expect. It calmed down my nerves a lot because I’d never been through the mediation and deposition and things of that sort.

You sent a book to walk me through this stuff before we even got there. I looked up some of your… After the Crash. So, I’m honored to be on the podcast right now, man. I’m honored, man.

David Craig – Host: I appreciate the fact. Because I really like to have a trucker’s perspective, a client’s perspective, because for people who’ve not ever been through this, they really don’t know what to expect.

You have been through it, and you survived a deposition, you survived the mediation, you got your case done, you just follow the instructions along. I know Carissa worked with you, and she loves you. She thinks you’re wonderful.

Akeem Hicks: I love Clarissa. I call her Rissa.

David Craig – Host: B.J. Kelly worked with you, and he says you’re fantastic. I appreciate you picking us, and I appreciate you being a guest on our podcast, After the Crash.

Akeem Hicks: Thank you for having me, David.

David Craig – Host: This is David Craig, and you’ve been listening to After the Crash. If you’d more information about me or my law firm, please go to our website ckflaw.com, or if you’d like to talk to me, you can call 1-800-ASK-DAVID.

If you would like a guide on what to do after a truck wreck, then pick up my book, Semi Truck Wreck: A Guide for Victims and Their Families, which is available on Amazon, or you can download it for free on our website, ckflaw.com.