The Drivers' Network

"Let's go get that pig."

"O.K., we're moving from 2 to spot 5."

Using coded numbers referring to prearranged assembly points, a good many of the car-borne rioters cruising the streets when school busing began in the Louisville area a week ago brought a new weapon to the arsenal of the urban demonstrator: the citizens' band radio. When local officials realized that elusive troublemakers had been keeping track of the cops as well as each other through these inexpensive two-way sets, they struck back in kind. They obtained a powerful transmitter of their own and used it to jam CB channels with loud signals whenever the chatter indicated that rioters were on the move.

Though it was scarcely intended to be an aid to urban protesters, CB may be the fastest-growing communications medium since the Bell telephone. Used largely as a plaything after its introduction in the 1950s, it first invaded the air waves in force during the 1973 oil embargo, when speed limits were dropped to 55 m.p.h. and truck drivers installed the units to warn each other of radar traps. In the past year, the vogue has spread to a vast and vocal number of private-car owners, who have tied into a short-wave system* that today links an estimated 6 million radio sets. For most of its users, the CB system has become a new information-and-entertainment radio network of the road.

No Exam Needed. While some CB owners exchange aimless chitchat or jokes, the primary use for the sets, which have a range of about 15 miles, is to apprise other drivers of road hazards, weather conditions and emergencies. On the nation's highways this summer, auto-borne vacationers with CBs could get all this information--and a lot more. A family returning from Maine took a tip from a driver who called himself Thermidor and lucked into an exceptional lobster restaurant. Some of the CB messages are unembarrassedly commercial. A group of CB-assisted hookers plies one of the main highway approaches to Los Angeles ("This is Tender Love. I've got Lady Jane here ready for a pit stop").

Chicago-based CB Center of America, which operates two retail stores on each coast, reports sales of 500 sets per week, double last year's rate. Says Co-Owner Fred Bartlett: "We're selling them to salesmen, doctors, businessmen, housewives--just about everyone." Unlike "ham" radio, which calls for considerable expertise and costs at least $700 for a good set, a CB unit takes no more skill to operate than a telephone and costs only about $120. No exam is needed for the $4, FCC-required CB license, but only a minority of buyers bothers to get one in any case.

TIME'S Chicago bureau chief, Benjamin Gate, recently monitored highways in his area with a rented 4-watt set. He reports: "Motorists have discovered that instead of being isolated in a car, listening to some dreary radio station, CB helps them stay alert and puts them in touch with scores of other drivers. A typical transmission we picked up in Illinois went like this: 'Breaker 10 [the emergency frequency], this is Buffalo Bill in an 18-wheeler rolling by Mile 78 on 1-90 North. Got an overturned camper here, lots of smokeys [police] in the area, and it's pretty congested.' It was a useful message, and it made the point that what may have started out as a fad or a tool against police has turned into a valuable driving aid. In Kansas the number of deaths caused by drivers falling asleep, for example, has been on the decline for two years, and police attribute the drop to CB."

Seat Covers. Though initially leary of CB, many state police now agree that it is an ally. As an experiment the Missouri Highway Patrol allowed 140 troopers to install CB units at their own expense in September 1974. In the following six months, CB-equipped state patrol cars logged 667 calls from private drivers, not including requests for road conditions and directions. The calls resulted in 221 arrests, most of them for such offenses as drunken driving and speeding; among those nabbed were 21 wanted criminals.

In Kansas, where a quarter of the state force has installed CB sets at its own expense, troopers are reaching the scene of serious accidents in one-third the time it took two years ago. "If you want to travel safely, the only way to go is CB," says Kansas Highway Patrol Sergeant Oscar Becker. He adds dryly: "And there's a lot more wit on CB than you'll get on TV." Perhaps. From the elevated perch in a truck cab, drivers are ever alert to the virtues of attractive legs in passing cars. Reported one who got but a fleeting glance: "I've got my mind on what I'm doing, trying to catch up with a super pair of seat covers."

*In which users can tune their sets to transmit or receive on any of 23 channels in the high-frequency band, close to the "land mobile" channels used by cab companies and others.

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