Are CB radios still worth it?

You just have to be smarter than the radio, a pair of good boots might help, but I doubt it. lol

 

Pretty good thread @PE_Trans .
Lots of information for drivers and readers.

Bottom line: there are a lot of different operations in the trucking industry, all with varying needs and expectations. Diversity is great!

The sharing of diverse view points, knowledge and experience helps folks make informed decisions. Perhaps that happened here for someone.

Thanks for the thread.

 

I was a carpenter for many years. So I believe in having all the tools at my disposal. Just cause I have a circular saw doesn’t mean I don’t need a reciprocating saw or a coping saw. Just cause I have a nail gun doesn’t mean I don’t need a 22oz framing hammer or a rubber mallet.

So, because of this mentality, I have a CB. I also have a GPS, truckers atlas, smart phone with multiple apps, and a paper copy of a truck parking guide, the ‘green bible’ FMCSA book and the orange Hazmat Response guide. My ELOG tablet also has Google maps.
Some are used more than others but they are all important.
To me, a true professional has all the tools needed to complete the job in a timely and qualified manner. CB is a great tool when you need it.

 

The drivers without a CB never hear other drivers asking them "what the F are you doing...". I think this explains how we now routinely see new drivers doing things only someone in the past would do in an extreme emergency. Their parents told them they were always right and they've never heard one other human say otherwise because they "have their fingers in their ears."

"It must be OK to park in the middle of the truckstop driveway or take 90 minutes parked at the fuel pumps. I've never heard even one complaint."

 

I wouldn't drive a truck without one. It's saved my bacon more than once. Weather conditions changing, stopped traffic ahead of the next hill, and now with an ungoverned truck, smokey reports are nice too.

It's also nice to have a friendly chat with another driver every once in a while. You may not know them, but you'll listen and share with them as if you did.

 

A lot of the places I load and unload require a CB. Have to communicate with the scale master and the loader operators.

 

Short answer, YES!. Not an American Express Commercial, but "Don't Leave Home Without It".

 

Are CB radios still worth it?

Depends...what did you pay?

 

I would.

I still have the Uniden PC76xl that did good some of the time when it was really needed. My number one gave me warning of a pending head on about 5 seconds and closing around a curve in my own lane by 6 or 7 people teenagers laughing and drinking at 60+ against my steel beamed covered wagon. Call it 8 lives saved by that radio that day. They were in a yellow convertable Buick early 70's LeSabre. A tank of a car. about 3 ton. This would be US 23 jct south of Stoneyridge truckstops below the toll road by a couple of miles in the summer of 1995. I don't know how many grandchildren they are fixing to raise now. Don't really want to know.

Im still kind of angry with those idiots. Maybe I should have let them get killed as a lesson. But no. Im not like that.

Thats why that particular radio is sitting pretty, loved on and kept clean more or less ready to go since 1993.