Safety and UHF communications

Please allow me to wax a bit eloquent (and bluntly) about travelling out west or in mining country with your caravan WITHOUT a CB radio on Channel 40. All trucks, wide loads and road trains are on Channel 40 and if you check out the video you’ll get some ideas of why I keep hammering about using your radio because we did have channel 40 and we were advised by the escorts how wide the load was and how far off the road we should get. Now here’s where I get a bit blunt…… I used to be a Wide Load Pilot and I found that most caravanners were heading towards the giant load behind me, without having any knowledge of the dimensions and safety requirements. (Either off the air or on some other channel). Scary stuff for us pilots and scarier for the truck driver because I’ve had vehicles actually crash into the load because they rushed the load to a narrow bridge. Simple message, fit a UHF CB, turn it on, and MONITOR CHANNEL 40. That’s where all the safety advice is. As those Meerkats in the TV ads used to say…..”Thimple.”