Mandating the installation & use of CB radio in British & Northern Irish registered motor vehicles...

... A proposal to HM Government

After seeing the chaos that ensues over the Christmas period 2 years in a row, and in 2018 being a victim of car park rage at the hands of a driver of a brown Fiat 500, that same day being cut off at the exit to the same car park by an off duty taxi registered with Hambleton District Council I wanted to push through 2019 for this to happen but due to other commitments I did not, and then came the road rage incident that took place at Lancaster services on my way to the Blackpool rally, which could have also been avoided had this came to pass.

These incidents were all down to lack of communication between drivers, I chose CB radio as the service for this proposal as it has a reasonable range, 80 channels available (though removing 9, 14 and 19 on both blocks of 40 for their official uses this would actually be 74 but still more than the 8-16 PMR446 channels), the antenna would be able to be sited outside the car on its roof which due to the fixed antenna restriction of PMR446 cannot be done, and the vast majority of CB sets available are made with mobile use in mind as they can run of 12 volts, the car battery voltage (this is in reality around 13.8 volts up to 14.2 volts with the engine running), and can be plugged into a cigarette lighter socket for convenience.

The idea is that all motorists monitor UK channel 19, this will allow them to call other motorists and move to another channel of their choosing, alert other motorists of hold-ups, roadworks, accidents and police speed traps, the highways departments that maintain the trunk roads and motorways to do the same to inform motorists well ahead of time of any issues, and service areas on the motorways to advertise themselves on channel 19 to let the motorists know they are there and that they should pull in if they need to.

Part of this proposal mandates that CB installations are to be tested for function similar to the vehicle's MOT, the difference being that the CB set be tested yearly, the similarity being that a fail would mean the vehicle cannot be driven on a public road except to and from a place for repair and retest of the CB set, changing the set would not require a test until the testing date is due, this is so vehicle owners can change the CB radio to a different unit if they so desire, like an MOT the CB function test applies to it at the time the test is carried out.

CB sets that can be integrated into the vehicle in some way are permitted provided they meet Ofcom's list of type approvals, they may need to be temporarily removed to be tested to check things like the fuse, power and antenna connections, there is a radio sold by Chinese manufacturer Nanfone, though I have yet to find a site that sells single units rather than bulk loads of 200 minimum, I know this product is a real product as Lewis M3HHY did a video on YouTube about it and will be posting another one at some stage as he now has a CB antenna, this radio paired with an antenna that looks like a stock car antenna would be suited to those that do not want their car to look different to what it does, though modern cars have stereos made that are shaped to fit the dash rather than the older DIN space, though it is still possible to fit a CB radio to a modern car without any major issue.

Full details of this can be found at the mini-site I am running here which includes more or less the above, and a guide to equipment that can and cannot be used and a link to an Of com guidance document regarding CB radio, I also have an hour long YouTube video on my radio channel here and it is also below should you not want to view it on YouTube

Let's make this proposal reality and persuade HM Government to make this law, I for one think it is an excellent idea

73 de M0WNU/26CT730