Breaker One Nine Good Buddy

Traveling back from Hilton Head this week we hit a "parking lot" just north of Knoxville.  Immediately the old days of CBs (Citizens Band Radios) popped into memory.  Yes the 1970-1980 craze of having a CB radio in your car.  Maybe I was more attune to this trend because of my summer job at Antenna Specialists in Cleveland, Ohio building Base Station Antennas. 

It was the i-phone of its day.  I think my call sign was Wizkid and I had all the CB slang down. If only I had the CB was my thought, I could have avoided this "parking lot" (e.g. bumper to bumper traffic for three plus miles).  Did my Onstar system warn me of a traffic snarl - NO!!  Did a DOT billboard warn me possible long delays - NO!!  Seems like traffic technology hasn't improved for the last 30 years (although there probably is an i-phone app for this situation now or in development).  

Actually there is some technology improvement.  I popped off the highway on the first available exit and allowed the GPS system to navigate the backroads  for me to avoid the snarl.  But the 1970's version of that was handing the map to passenger and asking for navigation assistance.

It's comforting to know that travel stress hasn't changed much for 30 years.