KB radio. It is forbidden to use devices in the car!
CB-radio broke popularity records in Poland in the 90s, to join the group of its users, it was enough to have a transmitter and an antenna. However, with a change in German regulations, CB radio may disappear forever from the cabs of trucks that carry goods in that country. Are there alternatives on the market for drivers who want to know their way to Berlin?
Prior to widespread access to the Internet, professional drivers used CB radio to inform themselves of possible road checks and road conditions in Poland and abroad. On the Vistula River, the law makes a clear distinction between mobile phones and CB equipment, but the number of accidents caused by the use of portable devices while driving (CB radios as well as tablets, phones and smartphones) may have prompted some countries to introduce restrictions in this regard. Thus, drivers in the area, in particular, Sweden, Ireland, Greece, Spain or Austria, and more recently also in Germany.
Announcements and later amendments to the German Road Traffic Act regulating the use of electronics while driving have troubled Polish drivers professionally on local roads for years. The thing they feared the most had happened. From July 1 this year. Our Western neighbors are prohibited from using portable electronic equipment while driving, with a fine of up to 200 euros. It is of little consolation that the German government has given drivers until January 31, 2021 to comply with the rules and called on individual federal states to refrain from imposing fines during that time. Use - that is, manage them manually. For this reason, the popular CB radio was included in the censorship, which in the classic version with a “pear” in hand was its integral element.
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As David Kochalski, GBOX expert, INELO Group, which monitors more than 30 truck movements across the EU, points out, CB radio is not only about warning about road checks, but also about sharing information, for example, about the availability of parking spaces, which is extremely important from a professional driver's point of view. Although CB equipment has become a symbol of communication on the route, it is time to abandon it, not only for safety reasons, but also because modern telematics systems offer a variety of useful features. On the one hand, the carrier, by providing such software to the driver, eliminates the need to develop a route, for example, in conditions of mandatory rest, bypassing traffic jams and closed areas, and on the other hand, it can control the supply chain, check costs or create reports, for example, on the timeliness of transportation . Communication on the route is too important for drivers to completely abandon it. Sometimes contact is even a prerequisite for safe travel. As with any industry, this requires professional tools.
These words can be confirmed by representatives of companies offering non-standard transportation. In their case, communication between the pilot and the driver via CB radio is required even by German law. Perhaps this is an oversight of the German legislator and in this case it will also be necessary to change the communication channel. Regardless of the rules, app makers have been announcing the end of CB for some time now and are offering customers alternatives that may not be penalized. Faster, safer, richer versions of apps available on the phone could be the nail in the coffin for CB hardware.
The ban on manual control of devices naturally pushed manufacturers to use voice control. There are already apps on the market that convert speech to text and thus enable the use of industry groups on social networks. This is important because systems, in order to match the legendary KB, must not ignore the element of interaction between road users that made the pear attractive. Such features are starting to appear in applications made in Poland. Their creators boast that these are solutions that eliminate noise and guarantee the best connection quality even in private user channels. They add that the software responds to voice, which is theoretically allowed under German law. However, one can doubt that one voice is enough to fully cope with the complex mechanism of a smartphone. Of course, systems with a certificate of conformity to the act and signed by representatives of the industry itself can be a solution.
But the CB industry itself does not “bury pears in ashes”, there are CB radio devices on the market that do not require holding a “pear” and communicating only through it. However, it's undeniable that the best years of CB radio are probably over.
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