CB Radio

With a new technology being implemented would automatically lend itself to the idea that Big Brother would have more control over citizens. In this case, it seems obvious that police would more easily be able to monitor the movements of Truckers and all people with CB radios. The paper, “Mobile Communications and Governing the Mobile: CBs and Truckers”, this shows us that this is not necessarily true. When the new speed rule of 55mph on the highway was introduced, long haul truckers got the short end of the stick. Their pay was based per mile, gas prices had increased, and this impacted the number of hours that they could work in a day. The idea of a panopticon was still relevant, but the idea that someone is watching only matters as long as someone cares about getting caught. These truckers acted as a group to circumvent the police catching them speeding in order to drive faster. They would communicate with one another, and would create convoys in which they would reach speeds of 75mph. This only worked for so long, as law enforcement came up with stricter regulations about who could use CB radio, because it was citizen band, it was public and everyone could listen in. This meant that the messages that police were conveying were not secret, and this was no longer acceptable.

From the perspective of a teenager, I understand wanting to get around authority because rules seem put in place to simply impede our fun (or in this case, the amount of money that the truckers could make). Although, trying to view this objectively, I see this as a scenario between parents and their teenager. The authority (the police, people that implemented the new rules etc) are the parents and the teenagers are the users of the CB radio, in this case, the truckers. The rules seem unfair and arbitrary, thus, when there appears to be a way to get around them, we do. Although, in hindsight it is clear that the rules were put in place for a reason, and just because they changed what we like to do and how we like to do it does not make them useless or arbitrary. The speed limit is obvious as it would have been put in place for safety and its affecting how much the trucker made per day was an unfortunate side effect. The situation was unfortunate but it does make sense given the rules of society, the rules of the road and the idea of secrecy within law enforcement.

Sam Essai