Over And Out?

Part and parcel of the 1970s trucking scene in the USA but illegal here until 1981, ‘good old CB’ is still used, despite huge advances in communication technology.

- Lucy Radley

For most people, Citizen’s Band – CB – radio is an anachronism, a cliché of the good old days that conjures up images of men in lumberjack shirts driving motors with twin-splitters and cab roofs low enough you had to lie in your bunk to put on your trousers.

But there are drivers out there still using CBs, and there have been some quiet legal changes in its favour over the last few years, just as mobile phones are becoming less socially acceptable for drivers, which may tempt you to give it another whirl. We take a look at to whom you’ll be talking and what the legal situation really is now.

Tipper work

Bulk tipper drivers on aggregate work are particularly active. 

“I use mine in the quarries to talk to the shovel driver, as well as when I’m running with a mate or pass one going the other way,” Simon Rose from Walsall tells us. Chris Cowell down in Bedfordshire echoes that: “I’ve always had one in the artic bulker, mainly for use in the quarries.”

For those who don’t know, weight is everything in this game because most haulage rates are paid based on tonnage; if a driver at the weighbridge on his way out of a collection finds he isn’t within a set tolerance of his maximum, he then has to go back and have some more put on – or take some off if he turns out to be over.

Also, the vast majority of tippers now have onboard weighers, making life much easier, but communication is still a must. “We use CB to let shovel operators know what product we want, then how much more weight we can take before he puts the last bit on,” RB84 says on TruckNetUK.com.