02-04-2017, 12:14 PM
Rick-o wrote: IIRC, they became popular during the oil embargo of the 70's, when the speed limit was reduced to 55mph. If you had a CB, you could monitor the truckers channel, (19?) and get reports of any Smokies up ahead so you could slow down and avoid a ticket.
This^. And as long as four wheelers stayed off the channel (19, although eastern drivers often used 17) you were good, otherwise you were ignored. Bear reports were not usually given to four-wheelers although we usually made exceptions for the rare darlin'.
CB radios are not as heavily used by truckers now as then because speed limits are higher, high enough that fuel use slows you down more than the bears, and frequently more than the speed limit, and GPS makes finding pickup/delivery places easy. They are still used to find out if a scale is open and if the weather is bad (closed roads, ice.)
Other forms of entertainment also keep the channel quiet. Before I retired I used the CB for communication with other drivers in my company when we ran together (often) and for use while making pickups and deliveries because the yard size of some shippers and consignees are quite expansive and we would need to communicate while moving around the yards using CBs. They are required in construction because you communicate with people on the ground via CB. The era of cheap cell phones also made a big contribution to the decline of the CB although most every truck still has one.