August 4, 1976

Truckers Abuse CB Radio

A courteous highway patrolman pulled me over recently to lecture me about driving too slow in the passing lane.

"You haven't broken any law," he told me, "but for your own safety you should get out of that passing lane as quickly as possible."

It is with some regret that I confess I did not react with nonchalance.

Three huge trucks had played hop-scotch with me on Interstate 71 for a half hour - running up my tail pipe, cutting me off, boxing me in.

I was doing a lawful 55 miles per hour.  Truck speed varied from 40 miles going up hills to 70 miles going down grade.  When they held 55 miles per hour for several minutes I discovered there was a highway patrolman lying in ambush just ahead.  With the law safely behind it was auto tag again, with me "It."

As I pulled out to pass a slow moving vehicle, one of the truck drivers roared up to my rear, blew his horn and blinked his headlights.  In exasperation I held my 60 mile-per-hour speed for some minutes forcing lead-foot to that crawl and enjoying every blast of his twin klaxons.

But it was me the patrolman pulled over.

"I have been passed by every truck on the road for an hour, and I'm observing the legal speed limit," I said heatedly.  "No truck obeys the speed limit and is a menace to those of us who do."

Then I gave the patrolman that classic challenge of a motorist at odds with the law, "Why don't you arrest lawbreakers instead of citizens minding their own business."  Not original, but it seemed to fit the situation.

His reply was incredible:

"You know and I know nobody drives just 55, especially trucks.  We try to watch them but they all have CB radios and keep each other informed constantly of our exact location.  Under the circumstances it is impossible to catch them.  For your own protection, therefore, you have got to get out of their way and let them have the road."

I was still stewing over that encounter last week when I received word that two acquaintances were killed instantly in a car-truck accident.

My friends were driving a sub-compact foreign auto.  The truck was going "over the legal limit" according to the patrolman's estimate, but the exact excess will never be known.  The truck driver isn't talking and the only others involved aren't talking either.

The truck was equipped with CB radio.  Possibly that new marvel of electronics played no part in the truck's excess speed.  But my own experience convinces me it did.

The CB radio fad has grown to big-business proportions.  The popular song, "Convoy," lionizes a gang of truckers who defy the speed limits and "Smokey Bear" patrolmen in dozens of states.

Mrs. Gerald Ford has a CB set in the White House and is said to converse with other CBers in the Washington area.  Presumably her "handle" is First Lady, but this is a closely guarded state secret to discourage a jam-up on the Citizen Band frequency by eager callers.

Congress set aside one radio band for short-range use by all citizens - a giant party line that anybody can use or listen to - as emergency communications.

Before long the hobbyists discovered CB was a cheap answer to ham radio, and the truckers found a way to keep tabs on Smokey Bear.

The emergency aspect of CB is long gone.  A few weeks ago a CBer in Cleveland tried to use his set to get help for a heart attack victim, but the play boys wouldn't get off the frequency.

Now the hobbyists are being crowded off the airwaves by lead-foot truck drivers thwarting the law.

Ohio tried to stop the unlawful use of the CB frequency by monitoring calls.  But the wily truckers now use daily password codes obtainable by insiders at truck stops.

If I were a CB fan I would deluge my representatives in the state legislature and the Congress to outlaw the use of broadcasting sets by any vehicle with a truck license.

There is no question that the use of CB to break the law with impunity is contrary to the spirit of the original citizen band allocation.  It is not the intention of Congress that CB should be used for commercial or illegal purposes.

Now that truckers are relatively immune from the laws that govern you and me, trucks are a serious hazard on the highways.  Trucks have grown to 18-wheelers and even double tandems.  Some behemoths are as long as a railroad boxcar.  When these monsters tangle with the family car, that shrinks each year, the result is always a catastrophe for the ordinary driver.

Trucks have taken over our highways, and CB has made it possible.  The trucking industry abuses and monopolizes a useful device meant for all citizens.

For our own protection it would be better to whittle down trucks to a safe size, slow them down to safe speed, and take away their CB to compel safe driving practices.

Author: Lindsey Williams