Traveling public using more phones, fewer CBs

Truckers still find CBs useful.
CLEVELAND (AP) -- The Ohio State Highway Patrol fields lots of calls -- about 6,300 a day to its various telephone lines -- but citizens band radio contacts have dropped off the chart.
In 1985, the patrol received 83,974 calls on CB channel 9, which troopers monitor in their cruisers.
In 2000, the calls dropped to 25,096. The patrol quit counting in 2001.
The popularity of CB radios peaked in the late 1970s, fueled by the "Smokey and the Bandit" movies and C.W. McCall's novelty song "Convoy."
Dennis Leonard Jr., owner of Litchfield Radio in Medina County, sold 800 to 1,000 CB radios a year from the mid-'70s to mid-'90s, he said, but now sells about 400 a year.
For truckers
Still, a CB is valuable for truckers. They use them to find out where to pick up freight inside businesses and get directions if they are lost, Leonard said.
"Everybody doesn't know everybody's cell phone number," he said.
Statewide, the patrol has received about 2.3 million calls each year since 2000 to all of its phone lines, said Sgt. Brett Gockstetter, a patrol spokesman.
The patrol has no plans to remove CB radios from the 980 cruisers equipped with them, primarily because CBs allow troopers to talk with motorists.
"We still get a lot of interesting tips," Gockstetter said. Troopers also can hear truckers talk about speeding motorists.
Steve Kerr, a UPS driver whose route takes him from Cleveland to Toledo, said he doesn't see many vehicles equipped with 6-foot antennas flapping in the wind, like he did when CBs were the rage.
"There's not that much chatter anymore," Kerr said.