{"id":17,"date":"2008-03-31T10:12:58","date_gmt":"2008-03-31T17:12:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.survival-spot.com\/survival-gear-equipment\/cb-radio-slang\/"},"modified":"2016-10-02T19:12:31","modified_gmt":"2016-10-03T01:12:31","slug":"cb-radio-slang","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.survival-spot.com\/survival-blog\/cb-radio-slang\/","title":{"rendered":"CB Radio Slang"},"content":{"rendered":"

CB radio slang is something you usually only hear at truck stops when truckers get bored between their routes. \u00a0But when TSHTF<\/a> and society is in a state of chaos suddenly amateur, HAM and CB radio will become much more popular than it is today. It may even be the only way of communicating depending on the scale of the disaster. \u00a0Knowing how to communicate using these tools and understanding common slang terms may become a hot commodity in your community. \u00a0You can prepare yourself now by using this guide to practice talking on the CB radio using these popular slang terms.<\/p>\n

Popular CB Radio Slang for law enforcement officers
\n\u2022 “Bear” \u2013 a law officer. The terms “Smokey” & “Bear” are both direct references to Smokey Bear, a character image commonly seen along U.S. highways. He wears a flat-brimmed forest ranger’s hat very similar to the hat included in many highway patrol uniforms in the U.S.
\n\u2022 “Bear Cave” \/ “Bear’s Den” \/ “Bear’s Lair” \u2013 a police station.
\n\u2022 “Bear \/ Smokey in a plain brown wrapper” \u2013 a law officer in an unmarked police car. The term “plain white wrapper” is sometimes used, depending on the color of the vehicle.
\n\u2022 “Bear in the air” \/ “Fly in the sky” \/ “Spy in the sky” \u2013 a police aircraft. While state police often use fixed-wing airplanes to monitor highway traffic, “fly” refers specifically to a helicopter.
\n\u2022 “Bear in the grass” \/ “Smokey in the bush” \u2013 a speed trap.
\n\u2022 “Bear with ears” \u2013 a police officer listening to others on the CB
\n\u2022 “Blue Light” \/ “Blue Light Special” \u2013 a law enforcement vehicle, especially with a stopped motorist.
\n\u2022 “Chicken coop” \u2013 a weigh station. “Locked up” \/ “clean” (ex: “the chicken coop is clean.”) means the station is closed.
\n\u2022 “City Kitty” \/ “City Bear” – Refers to local law enforcement monitoring a particular stretch of interstate which runs through their jurisdiction.
\n\u2022 “Convoy” – a group of 3 or more truckers in a line, usually exceeding the speed limit.
\n\u2022 “County Mountie” \u2013 a Sheriff’s deputy car.
\n\u2022 “Diesel Cop” \/ “D.O.T. Bear” \u2013 State Department of Transportation personnel, usually enforcing weight limits and safety rules ( brakes & tires).
\n\u2022 “Disco Lights” \u2013 the flashing emergency lights of a law enforcement vehicle.
\n\u2022 “Evel Knievel” \u2013 cop on a motorcycle.
\n\u2022 “Full-Grown” \/ “Full Grown Bear” \u2013 a state policeman\/trooper.
\n\u2022 “Gum ball machine” \/ “bubble gum machine” \u2013 refers to a popular style of rotating mirror light used by many state police and some other law enforcement agencies at the time, however the term can refer to any law enforcement vehicle. It looked somewhat like the round style of ‘penny’ gumball machines. It was basically a clear cylinder, like an upside down jar, with lights and a spinning mirror system inside. It was usually mounted on the center of the roof.
\n\u2022 “Hacker” \u2013 person or individual operating a radio transmission without regard for standard rules or etiquette.
\n\u2022 “Leo” \u2013 short for Law Enforcement Officer
\n\u2022 “Local yokel” \/ “City Kitty” \/ “Town Clown” \u2013 a law officer with a city or township police force, seldom encountered on interstate highways.
\n\u2022 “Mama Bear” \u2013 a female law enforcement officer.
\n\u2022 “Miss Piggy” \u2013 a pejorative term for a female law enforcement officer.
\n\u2022 “Picture-taker” \/ “Smokey taking pictures” \/ “Smokey bear is taking a picture” \/ “Kojak with a Kodak” \u2013 a law officer monitoring traffic with a radar gun. Today, this can also refer to an automated speed camera.
\n\u2022 “Radio Car” \/ “Super Trooper” – Either a marked or unmarked state trooper vehicle sporting additional antenna on the trunk or sides of the vehicle.
\n\u2022 “Smokey” \u2013 a law officer. A “smokey report” is what CB users say when they have information on a law officer, such as location or current activities.
\n\u2022 “Plain brown wrapper”-an unmarked highway patrol car- no emblems or lights on top, of any color, although the generic “brown” may be changed to the actual color of car, example – “plain black wrapper”
\nAustralia
\n\u2022 “Candy Car” \u2013 Highway Patrol Police Car usually with high-visibility Police decals (Australia)
\n\u2022 “Flash for Cash” \u2013 Speed Camera (Australia)<\/p>\n


\nOther popular terms<\/strong>
\n\u2022 “Anteater” \u2013 a Kenworth T600\/T660 tractor, because of the long sloping tilt up hood.
\n\u2022 “Baboon Butt” \u2013 a Kenworth T2000 tractor, because of the grille styling.
\n\u2022 “Back door” \u2013 the area behind a vehicle. To say “I got your back door” means that someone is watching another’s back. “Knocking at your back door” means approaching from behind.
\n\u2022 “Badger Bound” \u2013 Wisconsin Bound Highway Traffic.
\n\u2022 “Band-aid Buggy” \/ “Bone Box” \/ “Meat Wagon” \u2013 Ambulance.
\n\u2022 “Bear bite” – A speeding ticket.
\n\u2022 “Beaver” \u2014 a woman
\n\u2022 “Big road” \u2013 interstate highway, as opposed to smaller highways and city streets.
\n\u2022 “Bob-tail” \u2013 a semi-tractor operating without a trailer.
\n\u2022 “Breaker” \u2013 telling other CB users that you’d like to start a transmission on a channel. May be succeeded by either the channel number, indicating that anyone may acknowledge (“One-nine” refers to channel 19, the most widely used among truck drivers), or by a specific “handle”, which is requesting a particular individual to respond.
\n\u2022 “Bulldog” \u2013 a Mack Tractor, noted for the bulldog hood ornament.
\n\u2022 “Buster Brown” \u2013 a United Parcel Service truck.
\n\u2022 “Cash Box” – refers to a toll both or toll plaza
\n\u2022 “Cheese Wagon” – A School Bus
\n\u2022 “Swiss Cheese Wagon” – A school activity bus. So called because they are usually painted white.
\n\u2022 “Half Cheese” – A short school bus, usually for handicapped children
\n\u2022 “Little Cheese” – A small school bus, usually built on a 1-ton van chassis (aka cutaway).
\n\u2022 “Chicken coop” or “Coop” – refers to weigh stations
\n\u2022 “Covered Wagon” \u2013 a trailer that resembles a Covered Wagon of the old west, normally used for carrying steel rolls.
\n\u2022 “Come back” \u2013 a request for someone to acknowledge a transmitted message or reply to a question.
\n\u2022 “Comedian” – refers to the median between a divided highway.
\n\u2022 “Cornbinder” \u2013 a Navistar International truck (formerly International Harvester).
\n\u2022 “Crotch-Rocket Cowboy” – refers to an individual in a sports car driving recklessly. Usually used as a warning to other drivers to watch for erratic behaviour.
\n\u2022 “Dead-heading” \u2013 a truck operating with an empty trailer.
\n\u2022 “Double Nickel” \u2013 the 55 mph speed limit for trucks.
\n\u2022 “Driver” \u2013 a polite form of address used when you don’t know someone’s on-the-air nickname. (see “handle”)
\n\u2022 “Ears” \u2013 CB radio (ex: how bout ya JB, got ya ears on)
\n\u2022 “Fender Bender” \u2013 a road traffic accident\/crash
\n\u2022 “Flash for cash” \u2013 a speed camera
\n\u2022 “Flip-flop” \u2013 the return leg of a trip. (ex: “Catch you on the flip-flop” means “I’ll contact you again on the way back.”)
\n\u2022 “Four” \u2013 short for the ten code 10-4, which means acknowledged, okay, etc.
\n\u2022 “Four-wheeler” \u2013 While this is commonly used to refer to a four-wheel-drive vehicle (such as a jeep or pickup), among truck drivers it refers to any vehicle with only 2 axles, as distinguished from an “eighteen-wheeler” (a semi truck).
\n\u2022 “Freightshaker” \u2013 another term for a Freightliner tractor
\n\u2022 “Front door” \u2013 the leader of a convoy, or the area ahead of a vehicle.
\n\u2022 “Gator” \/ “Alligator” \u2013 a large piece of a truck tire’s tread in the roadway. The name comes from the tire tread’s resemblance to the scaly ridges of an alligator’s back, or the propensity for these pieces of tread to be drawn up between the cab and trailer by the air currents of a truck at highway speeds “like a snapping gator”, and sever the air brake lines between the tractor and the trailer. Most newer trucks have shield plates designed to prevent this.
\n\u2022 “Gator guts”- Smaller pieces of shredded tire usually preceding a larger piece of “gator” or “gator back”.
\n\u2022 “Gay Bay” \u2013 San Francisco Bay area.
\n\u2022 “Go-go juice” \/ “Motion Lotion” \u2013 fuel (usually diesel, since large trucks seldom run on gasoline.)
\n\u2022 “Good buddy” \u2013 In the 1970s, this was the stereotypical term for friend on CB radio. It now means a male homosexual.[1][2]
\n\u2022 “Good neighbor” \u2013 this has replaced “good buddy” as the acceptable term for friend.
\n\u2022 “Got your ears on?” \u2013 asking the receiver if they are on the air and listening.
\n\u2022 “Hammer lane” \u2013 the far left lane (fast lane).
\n\u2022 “Handle” \u2013 the nickname a CB user uses in CB transmissions. Other CB users will refer to the user by this nickname. To say “What’s your handle?” is to ask another user for their CB nickname.
\n\u2022 “Harvey Wallbanger” \u2013 a driver who appears to be drunk or is driving recklessly.
\n\u2022 “Hauling fence post holes” \/ “Hauling sailboat fuel” \/ “Hauling dispatcher brains” \u2013 hooked to an empty trailer.
\n\u2022 “Hitting the jackpot” – Getting stopped by a state trooper. Lights on trooper cars looked like slot machine lights.
\n\u2022 “How ’bout ya?” \u2013 a query used when seeking another, usually followed by their CB handle, or some other identifier if you don’t know their handle.
\n\u2022 “How many candles are you burning?” \u2013 is to ask ‘how old are you?’
\n\u2022 “I’m \/ We’re gone” \u2013 indicates that one is finished transmitting and may not be listening to the conversation any longer, or may be traveling out of receiving range. Equivalent to “Signing off”, “Out”, or “Clear” in formalized radio voice procedure.
\n\u2022 “K-Whopper” \/ “KW” \u2013 a Kenworth Tractor
\n\u2022 “Kick a tire” \u2013 to urinate using the quadruple tractor or trailer tires as cover
\n\u2022 “Kick it in” \u2013 what the person who is being called will say on his radio as a response.
\n(for example….”how ’bout cha Blue Beard. You got a copy on Shamrock?” “This is Blue Beard. Kick it in.”)
\n\u2022 “Kicker” \/ “Boots” \u2013 a Linear Amplifier that is used to boost the transmitting power of a CB Radio above the legal four watts.
\n\u2022 “Kiddy Car” \u2013 Refers to a school bus. Some bus drivers have a CB and will say ” Kiddy Car stopping ahead”
\n\u2022 “Lot Lizard” \u2013 prostitute, especially one that frequents truck stops.
\n\u2022 “Organ Donor” \u2013 a civilian motorcyclist, especially one without a helmet.
\n\u2022 “Pete” \/ “Petercar” \/ “Poor Boy” \u2013 a Peterbilt Tractor
\n\u2022 “Pickle Park” \u2013 an interstate rest area frequented by prostitutes.
\n\u2022 “Pregnant Rollerskate” \u2013 a Volkswagen Beetle.
\n\u2022 “Portable Parking Lot” \u2013 a car hauler
\n\u2022 “Pumpkin” \u2013 a Schneider National, Inc. truck.
\n\u2022 “Put the hammer down” \/ “Put the pedal to the metal” \u2013 Slang for flooring the accelerator.
\n\u2022 “Raking the leaves” – Refers to the last person in the convoy, who would watch out for troopers coming from behind
\n\u2022 “Reefer” \u2013 a refrigerated trailer, used for transporting foodstuffs and other perishable cargo.
\n\u2022 “Road pizza” \u2013 an animal that has been run over and flattened on the pavement.
\n\u2022 “Rolling refinery” \u2013 a tank truck carrying fuel.
\n\u2022 “Salt Shaker” \u2013 a snowplow
\n\u2022 “Sandbagging” \u2013 a term used to describe the activity of a person not participating in conversation but listening only, despite having the capability of speaking. This is not the same as listening in using a simple receiver, as the person doing this activity can transmit using the two-way radio, but chooses not to. It is done to monitor people for entertainment or for gathering information about the actions of others. Often CBer\u2019s will sandbag to listen to others’ responses to their previous input to a conversation, sometimes referred to a “reading the mail.”
\n\u2022 “Schneider Eggs” \u2013 Orange barrels filled with sand at construction sites to serve as a protective barrier for construction workers against moving traffic. The term is a reference to Schneider, a large trucking company known for its orange-painted trucks.
\n\u2022 “Seat cover” \u2013 an attractive female passenger in a vehicle.
\n\u2022 “ShakeyLiner” \/ “Freightshaker” \u2013 a Freightliner tractor.
\n\u2022 “Shakeytown” \u2013 Los Angeles, so nicknamed because of the earthquakes that occur there.
\n\u2022 “Shaking the Trees” – Refers to the person in the lead in a convoy, watching out for troopers up ahead.
\n\u2022 “Sin City” \u2013 Las Vegas, Nevada
\n\u2022 “Skateboard” \u2013 a flatbed truck or trailer.
\n\u2022 “Sleeper leaper” – see Lot Lizard
\n\u2022 “Steak on the grill” \/ “Put a steak on the grill” \u2013 to hit a cow.
\n\u2022 “Suicide jockey” \u2013 a truck carrying explosives.
\n\u2022 “Super Slab” \u2013 a slang term for a multi-lane highway
\n\u2022 “Tandems” \u2013 the rear wheels on a trailer
\n\u2022 “TK” \/ “Unit” \u2013 Thermo-King; refrigerated unit on the front of a trailer
\n\u2022 “The Mistake on the Lake” \u2013 Cleveland
\n\u2022 “Twenty” \/ “What’s your twenty?” \u2013 asking the receiver what their current location is. This term comes from the ten-code 10-20.
\n\u2022 “10-100” \/ “Going number 1” \u2013 (polite) Taking a bathroom break, specifically urination.
\n\u2022 “10-200” \/ “Going number 2” \u2013 (polite) Taking a bathroom break, specifically defecation.
\n\u2022 “Toilet mouth” \/ “Potty mouth” \u2013 someone using profanity on the air (on-air profanity is generally frowned upon within the CB community).
\n\u2022 “Wiggle wagon”- A semi truck pulling two or more trailers in tandem.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CB radio slang is something you usually only hear at truck stops when truckers get bored between their routes. \u00a0But when TSHTF and society is in a state of chaos suddenly amateur, HAM and CB radio will become much more popular than it is today. It may even be the only way of communicating depending […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[224],"tags":[92,165],"class_list":["post-17","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-resources","tag-cb-radio","tag-communications"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.survival-spot.com\/survival-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.survival-spot.com\/survival-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.survival-spot.com\/survival-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.survival-spot.com\/survival-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.survival-spot.com\/survival-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.survival-spot.com\/survival-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17473,"href":"https:\/\/www.survival-spot.com\/survival-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17\/revisions\/17473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.survival-spot.com\/survival-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.survival-spot.com\/survival-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.survival-spot.com\/survival-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}