Yes, we use them at work daily (all the trucks have CB's and many of the company pickups), couple of miles is all that is needed.
As the FCC originally envisioned the Citizens Radio Service in 1958 that is precisely what they had in mind. The service was originally on 462 Mhz, but the state of the art in those days made it difficult to produce radios on those high (at the time) frequency's at a price point and with the reliability that people could afford. So some idiot at the FCC thought it might be a good idea to take back the 11 meter Amateur band as radios could be made much cheaper and much more stable at the much lower frequency of 27 Mhz and create what is known as the Class D Citizens radio service with the original 23 channels..
That was all well and good but no one thought about the sunspot cycle. For several years at a time 27 Mhz supports long distance communications at sunspot maxima. At sunspot minima only ground wave communications or the occasional Sporadic E propagation is possible. Ground wave with inefficient antennas is typically only a few miles, Which is exactly what they had in mind.
During periods of high solar flux (large amounts of sunspots) the band opens up for "skip", and communication is possible for thousands of miles, even worldwide if there wasn't such congestion on the channels (later expanded to 40 to try to help alleviate the congestion). The FCC originally tried to stop "hobbyist" type activity by making it against the rules to try to communicate long distances, but by then the genie was out of the bottle. They discovered that there was not way to police this particular radio "service" and in fact they even dropped the licensing requirements and the need for actual assigned call-signs.
As the sunspots die down, the people attempting to work "skip" lose interest as the band is "dead" with only local short ranges are possible. Also as pointed out other technology's have surpassed the need for highway information, and interest in CB radio has dropped even more, with so many of the radios either going in the dumpster, or thrown in a pile in the garage.
Someday when cycle 25 starts back up (theoretically a few years from now) who knows if the CB usage will increase or not. Time marches on, and this isn't 1979 any more. Smokey and the bandit is a distant memory. And if illegal hobby usage of CB starts up again, your legitimate and useful usage of CB for short range communications will suffer.
Ironically the old original 462 Mhz frequency allocation for CB that was called Class A at the time is now called the FRS or Family Radio Service. It is very popular, and unlicensed but only "walkie talkies" portables are used here. The GMRS or General Mobile Radio Service is next door and does allow mobile radios but as far as I know it still requires applying for a license. it is just a small amount of money and waiting on the license and callsign to arrive. The radios for the FRS are extremely cheap and are blister packed at wal-mart which is the lowest common denominator. They are so cheap, they are throw away items.
