I got my license about five or six years ago while living in Colorado. The coverage of the repeater network was better than the coverage of the cellular network there. I was just on the east side of Glenwood Springs on I70 headed back home when there was a four car wreck right in front of me due to black ice, and of course no cell reception. I was able to reach someone on the Colorado Connections Repeater network and they reached the Glenwood Sheriffs instantly. They were able to dispatch sheriffs and ambulance very quickly. Otherwise it would have taken probably 30-40 more minutes for someone to reach cell reception just to call 911 to let them know there was an accident. That or the traffic to back up to the city.

It's an incredibly handy tool and worth looking in to the local ham group and repeater network in your area. I just sold the vehicle that I had my mobile radio previously installed in. I need to install it in the new vehicle so I can go back to chatting with the local HAMs on the way to work.

Sadly as I moved from Colorado about four years ago the community isn't as large where I'm at now as it was there.

Edit: I've been reading HN for a long time but for some reason today I felt I'd finally create an account to respond to this.