List of CB slang

CB slang (commonly called "CB Talk") are terms that those operating CB radio used mainly during the CB craze of the 1970s and 1980s. Some of these slang terms are still in use with their original meanings, others not used at all and some have changed meaning. This list shows the historical meanings.

Popular slang terms

Law enforcement officers and their equipment

"Astronaut" – police plane or helicopter
"Bear" – a police 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. It also Refers to their attitude to most truckers in general.
"Bear Cave" / "Bear's Den" / "Bear's Lair" – a police station.
"Bear / Smokey in a plain brown wrapper" – a law officer in an unmarked police car. The term "plain white wrapper" is sometimes used, depending on the color of the vehicle.
"Bear food" / "Bear bait" – vehicle speeding without CB.
"Bear in the air" / "Fly in the sky" / "Spy in the sky" – a police aircraft. While state police often use fixed-wing airplanes to monitor highway traffic, "fly" refers specifically to a helicopter.
"Bear in the grass" / "Smokey in the bush" – a speed trap.
"Bear taking pictures" – police with radar.
"Bear with ears" – a police officer listening to others on the CB
"Black and white" – Highway Patrol.
"Blue Light" / "Blue Light Special" – a law enforcement vehicle, especially with a stopped motorist.
"Boy scouts" – State Police.
"Camera" – police radar unit.
"Catch car" – police car past radar set-up.
"Checkpoint Charlie" – Old CB slang for a police checkpoint placed to look for drunk drivers, etc. This looks like a roadblock.
"City Kitty" / "City Bear" - Refers to local law enforcement monitoring a particular stretch of interstate which runs through their jurisdiction.
"County Mountie" – a Sheriff's deputy car.
"Cub scouts" – Sheriffs' Deputies .
"Diesel Cop" / "D.O.T. Bear" – State Department of Transportation personnel, usually enforcing weight limits and safety rules (brakes & tires).
"Disco Lights" – the flashing emergency lights of a law enforcement vehicle.
"Evel Knievel" – cop on a motorcycle.
"Full-Grown" / "Full Grown Bear" – a state policeman/trooper.
"Gum ball machine" / "bubble gum machine" – 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.
"Leo" – short for Law Enforcement Officer
"Local yokel" / "City Kitty" / "Town Clown" – a law officer with a city or township police force, seldom encountered on interstate highways.
"Mama Bear" / "Honey bear" – a female law enforcement officer.
"Miss Piggy" – a pejorative term for a female law enforcement officer.
"Paper hanger" – police giving speeding ticket.
"Picture-taker" / "Smokey taking pictures" / "Smokey bear is taking a picture" / "Kojak with a Kodak" – a law officer monitoring traffic with a radar gun. Today, this can also refer to an automated speed camera.
"Radio Car" / "Super Trooper" - Either a marked or unmarked state trooper vehicle sporting additional antenna on the trunk or sides of the vehicle.
"Sky bear" / "Spy in the sky" – police helicopter.
"Smokey" – 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.
"Smokey on Four Legs" – Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
"Snake In The Grass" police car radar usually hidden amongst tall cat tails
"Tijuana taxi" – A marked police car.

Australia

"Candy Car" – Highway Patrol Police Car usually with high-visibility Police decals (Australia)
"Flash for Cash" – Speed Camera (Australia)

Trucks and other non-police vehicles

"Aircraft Carrier" – Truck carrying a disassembled airplane, helicopter or a small plane, helicopter.
"Anchor clanker" – Boat trailer.
"Anteater" – a Kenworth T600/T660 tractor, because of the long sloping tilt up hood.
"Baboon Butt" – a Kenworth T2000 tractor, because of the grille styling.
"Band-aid Buggy" / "Blood Box" / "Bone Box" / "Meat Wagon" – Ambulance.
"Bean" – a Ford Pinto
"Big Orange" – Schneider truck.
"Blinkin Winkin" – School bus.
"Bob-tail" – a semi-tractor operating without a trailer.
"Bulldog" – a Mack Tractor, noted for the bulldog hood ornament.
"Bullfrog" – An ABF truck
"Bull Rack" – Livestock truck.
"Buster Brown" – a United Parcel Service truck.
"Camper" – a RV, such as a Motorhome. AKA as a "Portable House"
"Cheese Wagon" - A school bus. See also "Swiss Cheese Wagon", "Half Cheese, "Little Cheese".
"Chicken Choker" – Poultry truck.
"Church on Wheels" - a bus belonging to a church
"Circus Wagon" – Monofort truck.
"Covered Wagon" – a trailer that resembles a Covered Wagon of the old west, normally used for carrying steel rolls.
"Convict Wagon" - Prison Transport used by the Department Of Corrections, terminology is named for the caged wagons used to haul convicts to prison and/or to executions in the US in the 19th century. Usually it is a large bus that is the size of a standard city bus, painted white, has the D.O.C. markings on it, state or Federal markings on it as well.
"Cornbinder" – a Navistar International truck (formerly International Harvester).
"Corn Flaker" – (CFI) Consolidated Freight Lines truck.
"Draggin Wagon" – Wrecker.
"Flag Waver Taxi" – Highway construction truck.
"Four-wheeler" – 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).
"Freightshaker" – another term for a Freightliner Trucks tractor
"Half Cheese" - A short school bus, usually for handicapped children.
"K-Whopper" / "K-Wobbler" / "KW" – a Kenworth Tractor
"Kiddy Car" – Refers to a school bus. Some bus drivers have a CB and will say " Kiddy Car stopping ahead"
"Little Cheese" - A small school bus, usually built on a 1-ton van chassis (aka cutaway).
"Military Carrier"/ "Soldier Man" /"GI-Joe" - Truck carrying Hummers, soldiers, even Tanks, other military equipment.
"Pay Wagon" - a armored car, usually full of money as it goes from place to place, then to a bank.
"Pete" / "Petercar" / "Poor Boy" – a Peterbilt Tractor
"Pollock Express" – (PIE) Pacific Intermountain Express truck.
"Pony Express" – Mail hauler.
"Portable Barn Yard" – Cattle truck.
"Portable Parking Lot" / "Mobile Parking Lot" – a car hauler
"Pregnant Rollerskate" – a Volkswagen Beetle.
"Pumpkin" – a Schneider National, Inc. truck.
"Reefer" – a refrigerated trailer, used for transporting foodstuffs and other perishable cargo.
"Rolling refinery" – a tank truck carrying fuel.
"Salt Shaker" – a snowplow
"ShakeyLiner" / "Freightshaker" – a Freightliner Trucks tractor.
"Shanty Shaker" – Mobile home hauler.
"Skateboard" – a flatbed truck or trailer.
"Suicide jockey" – a truck carrying explosives.
"Super Chickens" – Yellow Freight System trucks.
"Swiss Cheese Wagon" - A school activity bus. So called because they are usually painted white.
"T2 Me Too" – A Peterbilt 387 tractor. Noted for its near clonelike resemblance to the Kenworth T-2000
"Thermos Bottle" – Driver pulling a chemical trailer
"Trash Can" – Trans Con truck.
"Wiggle wagon/Widowmaker/Set of Joints"- A semi truck pulling two or more trailers in tandem.
"sail boat" Viking Freight

Destinations

"Art Bell Town" – Pahrump, Nevada. Truckers at night usually listen to Art Bell and/or George Noory, and call Art's hometown that.
"Badger Bound" – Wisconsin Bound Highway Traffic.
"Big A" – Atlanta, Georgia.
"The Big Easy" – New Orleans, Louisiana
"Bikini State" – Florida.
"Bubble City" - Champaign, IL
"Bulls*t City" - Washington DC (Named this because of politicians who choose to disregard the American people. Ads a consequence, they believe the politicians are (polite) "full of it")
"Choo Choo Town" – Chattanooga.
"Dirty Side" – New York and New Jersey.
"Gay Bay" – San Francisco Bay area.
"Mickey Mouse Towns" – location of the Walt Disney theme parks
"Music Town" – Nashville.
"Shakeytown" – Los Angeles, so nicknamed because of the earthquakes that occur there.
"Sin City" – Las Vegas, Nevada

Other popular terms

"A&A" ((polite)Aggravating Agitator)/ This term refers to a CB user whose main purpose in life is to stir trouble and cause problems. This is usually performed by someone heavily under the influence of alcohol, and/or drugs.
"Buffalo" – a male prostitute, who may be homosexual
"Back door" – 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.
"Bear Bait" - An erratic or speeding driver.^[1]
"Bear bite" - A speeding ticket.
"Beaver" – a woman, slang for a woman's pubic area.
"Big road" – interstate highway, as opposed to smaller highways and city streets.
"Breaker" – 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.
"BUSTED!" - You see two or more patrol cars, one other car pulled over, people in cuffs on the ground and/or in the cruiser, which may have a cage in it, the car's contents all over the place, officers searching it (most likely for drugs, weapons). Sometimes the vehicle's tires are flat, after it hit one or more spike strips.
"Cash Box" - refers to a toll booth or toll plaza
"Channel 4 Drunk" / This refers to a chronic alcoholic who spends an extreme amount of time on the CB radio. Interchangeable with the terms Silverfish, Buck, Kool-Aid Man, or Leadfoot. Derived from the Channel Four CB club in Concord, North Carolina.
"Checking my eyelids for pinholes" – I'm tired.
"Chicken coop" – a weigh station. "Locked up" / "clean" (ex: "the chicken coop is clean.") means the station is closed.
"Coloring Book" or "Comic Book" - A truckers log book.^[1]
"Convoy" - a group of 3 or more truckers in a line, usually exceeding the speed limit.
"Come back" – a request for someone to acknowledge a transmitted message or reply to a question.
"Comedian" - refers to the median between a divided highway.
"Crotch-Rocket Cowboy" - refers to an individual on a sport bike (motorcycle) riding recklessly. Usually used as a warning to other drivers to watch for erratic behaviour.
"Dead-heading" – a truck operating with an empty trailer (see "Hauling fence post holes").
Dog The Bounty Hunter or Dog - slang for a bounty hunter because this show is how people view bounty hunters
"Double Nickel" – the 55 mph speed limit for trucks.
"Driver" – a polite form of address used when you don't know someone's on-the-air nickname. (see "handle")
"Ears" – CB radio (ex: how bout ya JB, got ya ears on)
"Eaten by a Bear" - Someone who is arrested by police, you can see the arrested person in the patrol car, especially if said patrol car has a "cage" in it.
"Fender Bender" – a road traffic accident/crash
"Flash for cash" – a speed camera
"Flip-flop" / "Flip-side" – the return leg of a trip. (ex: "Catch you on the flip-flop" means "I'll contact you again on the way back.")
"Four" – short for the ten code 10-4, which means acknowledged, okay, etc.
"Four Wheel Phone Booth" - Someone using a cell phone while driving. Several states in the US and countries have outlawed this, but it still goes on.
"Front door" – the leader of a convoy, or the area ahead of a vehicle.
"Gator" / "Alligator" – 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.
"Gator guts"- Smaller pieces of shredded tire usually preceding a larger piece of "gator" or "gator back".
"Go-go juice" / "Motion Lotion" / "Pusholine" – fuel (usually diesel, since large trucks seldom run on gasoline.)
"Good buddy" – In the 1970s, this was the stereotypical term for friend on CB radio. It now means a male homosexual.[1][2]
"Good neighbor" – this has replaced "good buddy" as the acceptable term for friend.
"Got your ears on?" – asking the receiver if they are on the air and listening.
"Hacker" – person or individual operating a radio transmission without regard for standard rules or etiquette.
"Hammer lane" – the far left lane (fast lane).
"Handle" – 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.
"Harvey Wallbanger" – a driver who appears to be drunk or is driving recklessly.
"Hauling fence post holes" / "Hauling sailboat fuel" / "Hauling dispatcher brains" – hooked to an empty trailer.
"Hitting the jackpot" - Getting stopped by a state trooper. Lights on trooper cars look like slot machine lights.
"How 'bout ya?" – a query used when seeking another, usually followed by their CB handle, or some other identifier if you don't know their handle.
"How many candles are you burning?" – is to ask 'how old are you?'
"I'm / We gone" – 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.
"Jabber" "Jabber"/"Jabbering Idiot"/"Babble" "Babble"/Babbling Idiot" - Someone using foreign language on the CB. US law forbids other languages on the radio, yet it continues.
"Jibber Jabber on Channel 9" - someone using foreign language on Channel 9, which is illegal, but goes on. Channel 9 on the CB is supposed to be used only to report emergencies, such as a overturned truck, fire, criminal matters, related matters.
"Kick a tire" – to urinate using the quadruple tractor or trailer tires as cover
"Kick it in" – what the person who is being called will say on his radio as a response. (for example: "how 'bout cha Blue Beard. You got a copy on Shamrock?" "This is Blue Beard. Kick it in.")
"Kicker" / "Boots" – a Linear Amplifier that is used to boost the transmitting power of a CB Radio above the legal four watts.
"Limo Liberal" / "Richie Roach" ; Someone in a limousine. Taken from comments made by Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity regarding liberals riding in limousines. Comment taken from the Richie Rich comics, but "Richie Roach" is a polite term for calling someone wealthy a uncomplimentary name.
"Lot Lizard" – prostitute, especially one that frequents truck stops.
"OOOOOPS" - An obnoxious to get attention for purposes of being informative. Word said on CB referring to an accident or a police traffic stop, "Oooops at the 49."
"Office on Wheels" - Office workers using the car as a office while in traffic. Both cell phone use and using the auto as a "office" has been known to cause interference in Wi-Fi devices, baby monitors, especially during the daily commutes in many cities.^{[citation needed]}
"Organ Donor" – a civilian motorcyclist, especially one without a helmet, usually driving erratically and/or is drunk and/or is on drugs.
"Pickle Park" – an interstate rest area frequented by prostitutes.
"Pill" – a power transistor in an illegal linear amplifier.
"Put the hammer down" / "Put the pedal to the metal" – Slang for flooring the accelerator.
"Raking the leaves" - Refers to the last person in the convoy, who would watch out for troopers coming from behind
"Road pizza" – an animal that has been run over and flattened on the pavement.
"Rubbernecker" - Vehicles that further slow down or impede already congested traffic by rotating their heads 360 degrees to view the accident or traffic incident and not paying attention to the road ahead.
"Sandbagging" – 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.^[2]^[3] It is done to monitor people for entertainment or for gathering information about the actions of others. Often CBer’s will sandbag to listen to others' responses to their previous input to a conversation, sometimes referred to a "reading the mail."^[4]
"Schneider Eggs" – Orange barrels filled with sand at construction sites to serve as a protective barrier for construction wokers against moving traffic. The term is a reference to Schneider, a large trucking company known for its orange-painted trucks.
"Seat cover" – an attractive female passenger in a vehicle.
"Shaking the Trees" - Refers to the person in the lead in a convoy, watching out for troopers up ahead.
"Sleeper leaper" - see Lot Lizard
"Steak on the grill" / "Put a steak on the grill" – to hit a cow.
"Suds and mud" - Beer and coffee (with cream/milk in it), served at some truck stops and restaurants.
"Super Slab" – a slang term for a multi-lane highway
"Tandems" – the rear wheels on a trailer
"10-100" (polite) Taking a bathroom break, especially on the side of the road.
"10-200" / Police needed at ..........
"TK" / "Unit" – Thermo King; refrigerated unit on the front of a trailer
"Twenty" / "What's your twenty?" – asking the receiver what their current location is. This term comes from the ten-code 10-20.
"Toilet mouth" / "Potty mouth" – someone using profanity, obscene language on the air (on-air profanity is generally frowned upon within the CB community).
"Twister Tracker" - Someone who is chasing tornadoes, other storms.
"UFO Central" - Area 51, other areas known for UFO activity. (Truckers call the area near Rachel, Nevada this, other areas known for UFO activity, such as Phoenix, Arizona)
"Willy Weaver" - A driver who is weaving, due to lack of sleep or alcohol.^[5]