50 years of "Got your ears on?"
By Timothy Brady

That’s a big 10-4 there, it’s clear up the ol’ double nickel to the Windy. Haven’t seen any bears for the last 100 miles. They must be all at the zoo having a donut break. 

Don’t go into the pickle park at the 64 mile marker as the door knockers are out in full force; looked like there were some honey bears in plain brown wrappers milling around in there too.

When you reach the Bolingbrook chicken coop they seemed particularly interested in skateboards and portable parking lots. Looked like the bears were having a green stamp party at their expense.

Can anyone give me a 10-13 report on 44 south of the Arch?  Don’t need to get a free truck wash and I need to be in Tulsa Town before dark, as I don’t want to burn my chicken lights. I need to get out in the hammer lane and put the pedal to the metal down the Boulevard and don’t want to feed any bears along the way.

This bedbugger is boogieing down the interstate and doesn’t plan on sweeping any leaves along the way. Keep the sunny side up and we’ll catch you on the flipside.

Is the CB and its language going the way of the landline payphone, the teletype and COE tractors? As the era of the technologically-savvy trucker becomes wider and deeper, is there still a use for the Citizens Band Radio in trucking? The CB, a communication device that has defined the trucking lifestyle for fifty years, has been the main means for a trucker to get help when broken down on the side of the road, to find out what the road conditions were ahead, and to know what’s caused the backup that has him slowing or stopped in traffic. Has it been replaced by the smart phone, the PDA, the laptop computer, GPS routing devices and satellite communications?  Are we coming to the end of an era?

While the CB provided and possibly still provides in some situations much needed real-time information necessary for the safe operation of a semi, there are also the negatives it brought along to the trucker. There were and still are the trash talkers, the ‘CB Rambos,’ who hide in anonymity behind the CB mike using foul language and picking fights with anyone who responds. Then there’s soliciting business for nefarious enterprises and individuals, drugs, prostitution and the like. It is also used by some truckers, “Gearjammers” and “Cowboys” in trucker slang, to sneak around scales and speed traps.

But again, it has its positives in that it is real-time communication between truckers and others on the road with CBs to the ever-changing environment of the highway.

There are movements afoot, or should we say a-wheel, that are working on making the use of a CB with a handheld mike in a moving vehicle a “distracted driving offense” with the same fines and points as a cell phone. Both New Jersey and Delaware have recently enacted distracted driver laws which address CB use. In both states, they exempted the hand-held CB mike from the law. But other states passing similar laws neither addressed the CB directly as to the legislation nor exempted it from being a part of the law.

In discussions concerning the CB, it’s important to find out what leaders in the manufacture of CBs think about its outlook. After all, they are the ones making the largest investment into the CB radio’s future.  So I contacted Cobra Electronics (http://www.cobra.com) and asked them, “What does Cobra Electronics see for the future of the CB radio as a tool for the American Trucker? 

“For 50 years Cobra has provided the highest quality products to meet the needs of the professional driver,” said Tony Mirabelli, senior vice president of marketing and sales for Cobra. “The CB radio is still the most cost effective means of communication to the trucker. It costs nothing to transmit or receive. Our job is to continue to bring forward advances in technology such as hands-free Bluetooth, weather radio channel auto search and a diagnostic that allows drivers to continuously monitor their radio's RF output, SWR setting, and battery voltage. And as new technologies become available, Cobra will continue to develop and implement them into the Citizens Band Radio.”

The company sees the venerable CB Radio as an important tool for the professional driver for today and well into the future: It not only provides them [the truckers] with real-time important information such as weather alerts, traffic conditions, and accident reports, it is also their friend out on the open road. Whether finding where the best gas prices or closest truck stop is, it also provides company to the driver on the long drives at odd hours.

Where does this leave the CB’s future as a real-time communication tool for the over-the-road trucker? Only time will tell, but it’s been a part of the culture and a tool of the American trucker for over fifty years. I don’t think it will disappear anytime soon, but it will evolve as any tool should.

Keep the shiny side up and stay out of the comedian as you roll down the boulevard. Oh, good roads and good loads everyone; we’ll catch you on the flip side.

Timothy Brady  © 2010
To contact Brady go to www.timothybrady.com