There are a lot of important tools in the trucking industry like a map, extra bulbs, fuses, gloves, hammer and a good tool box, just to name a few. That's just a starting list and no where near all of it, but I would have to say very close to the top of the list is a good C.B..

The C.B. Radio(Citizens Band Radio) has many different functions in a truckers life. Before cell phones the C.B. was the only form of communication in a truck to the outside world. You might even say it was a life line for the trucker. For instance, if something should happen to you on the road in the middle of nowhere Wyoming and your truck broke (witch they do all the time no matter how new they are) and you didn't have a phone near by, you could call for help from a passing truck on the C.B.. That truck would then stop at the nearest phone and call for the help you needed. Also most state patrol (and or highway patrol depending on the state you are in) monitor the C.B. for stranded motorists and accident reports.

With cell phones so easy to get nowadays almost every truck driver has one but, we still call out to trucks broke down on the side of the road just to make sure they are in cell phone range and see if they might need a hand or a call made.

C.B.s are also very useful in helping know what is coming up on the road you might want to watch out for. We report accidents that are coming up and witch lane is best to be in to get around it, if you can get around at all. If the road is blocked we give and get directions on how to get around the blocked road, so we don't get stuck in the back up. When there is construction we let the other trucks coming up to it know what lane is blocked off so we can prepare ahead of time. You might take notice next time your in a big back up due to construction or a accident witch lane the trucks are all in and you will know where to go. If you see all the trucks dive off the highway at the same place you might know why.

The C.B. also has some nefarious uses. One such use is the tracking and reporting of where the "bears" are. Bears being the police. They have many names depending on who and what they are. A few examples are...
Full grown bear = State Patrol with a light bar on top.
Polar bear = a white patrol car no lights on top (normally in California they are D.O.T. Officers). D.O.T. bear = Department Of Transportation Officer(they are assigned to patrol trucks, better mind your P's and Q's).
County Mounty = a sheriff or county police officer.
Local Yocal = The city police.
Care bear = police officer assigned to watch over a construction site.
Bear in the woods = a officer hidden from view to catch speeders.
Evil Kanevil = motorcycle officer.
Bear with a capture = Officer with someone pulled over (like "a bear with a captured big truck" is a trucker being pulled over).
A plain (insert color here) wrapper (i.e. a plane brown wrapper)= a solid color police car with no markings (you might wonder how we know its a police officer, they have to pass one of us and we all look down to see in the cars going by (yes we have nothing better to do with our time)).
There are a few other names but they escape me at the moment.

The way the tracking works is rather simple and very efficient. Most all trucks keep their C.B. on channel 19 unless you are driving on I-5 in California North of the grapevine all the way to the Canadian border, then it is channel 17. For the grapevine it's self (the grapevine is a section of I-5 from Valencia to Grapevine California over the Tejon Pass) they use channel 15. I have never figured out why the use of different channels on the west coast but, that is what it is. I will have to research that and see if i can find a reason. So now with all the trucks on the same channel, we form a line of communication. Every bear report is located by a mile marker.

Mile markers are little signs you see along the road and start from 0 in the south and go up till the road ends or leaves the state or they start at 0 on the west side and the highest number is in the east. All states work this way with one or two exceptions in New York and California. The Federal government has made this a standard by telling the states they have to mark interstates this way and list exit's with a number that matches the interstate mile marker or they do not receive Federal funding for their roads. The reason California is different is because they refused to mark their highways until forced to do so and now they are slowly doing so. New York has a giant toll road that is I-90 and its paid for with tolls so they haven't bothered to do so.

So you might hear over the C.B. "there is a polar bear in the center divide looking at the west bound at the 42". That means if your west bound around 44 you might want to make sure you are doing the speed limit and not in the "hammer lane" (hammer lane is the left most lane you use for passing, in most states if there are 3 or more lanes per side, trucks cant use the left most lane. Hammer is another word for the accelerator and when you push it all the way to the floor you are hammering it down).

Another use for the C.B. is the truckers favorite pass time, Whining. They love to whine about everything from the bears to the government to the way other truckers drive. You have to have a special license that lets you drive two trucks at once to be able to tell another trucker how to drive and get away with it (in other words you never get away with it) but, they all try. There is a never ending supply of advice out there and you have to pick and choose what you want to respond to. Four Wheelers (Four Wheelers is what we call cars for the obvious reason they only have 4 wheels) are most often clueless to all that is being communicated around them by the trucks on the C.B. and i would say most time that is a good thing but, at other times they are missing out.

My favorite joke related to this subject is "what is the difference between a truck driver and a puppy?

Eventually the puppy stops whining.

I have heard a lot of things on the C.B. from great political debates to an awesome rendition of the national anthem sung by a driver while driving across the Western side of Nebraska as the sun was coming up over the bluffs.

Just another interesting part in the life of a trucker in America.

Until next time, be safe.