Why my CB radio is on all the time, and why yours should be, too

Among other things, like one time trying to tell an oblivious flatbed driver his back strap was dragging on the pavement, I have another reason for this thread.

On Thursday morning, I was driving through the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton area on I-81 north, heading to Connecticut. Having my radio on, I started to hear rumblings of a developing problem ahead of me. The first report was of a broken down vehicle in a construction zone tying up traffic. Farther along, the reports changed to the broken down vehicle being rear-ended at speed, and the the freeway was shutting down. This happened at about the 173-175 mile marker near the Pilot Truckstop near Pittston.

Hearing this AHEAD OF TIME, and knowing the area, I decided to jump off at Exit 170 and run parallel to I-81 on PA-315. At that time, there was yet to be a lot of traffic on 315, and other than a couple of red lights, I breezed right on by the mess, and got back on the freeway and continued on. Had I not had the radio on, I would have never known what was going on ahead of me and would have been trapped, sitting for a couple of hours waiting for the wreck to be cleared.

So to any of the new drivers reading this thread, instead of just cranking up the tunes on the Sirius radio, try to keep the CB on at all times as well. You can still listen to the radio. Just squelch the CB to drown out the garbage, but have it up loud enough to hear it over the music. If you're having a truck problem or there is road information, a close in signal will break the squelch, and you'll know what's going on near you. Chances are that one day it might save your hide, if for nothing else but to get around a major traffic jam, but also, if you're having some kind of problem with your truck. Another driver may spot it (like I did with the flatbed driver) and make an attempt to let you know, possibly saving yours, or someone else's, life.

 

Sad, but true. It's one of the reasons so many choose not to monitor the CB anymore. If it weren't for the idiots...

Gone are the days of getting reliable road reports, directions, etc. I'm old school, so I just basically tune out the BS, plus I have the squelch turned up so that I only here stuff within about a mile or two of my location.