My offroad club uses UV-5R radios (and other Baofengs) exclusively...we have for quite a few years. One of our club members programmed them to have the legal non-Ham channels - I believe they are GMRS? or FRS? I don't recall but it was researched extensively and what we are using does not require a license. Other frequencies on the old UV-5Rs do require a license.
Speaking from about 15 years of experience with these things - they work about as well as CB, maybe a little better. If you are in a canyon or hilly country they may only have a usable range of a couple hundred yards. Line of sight might be a mile or two in the very best conditions. External antennas mounted on your vehicle help... that defeats the purpose of a handheld though... if you have two handhelds with stock antennas being used inside vehicles, the range is not good. Half a mile or so maybe.
There are also some significant quality issues. I'm guessing 25% or more of the radios we got quit working at some point. Some won't transmit, won't receive, or both. Pretty high failure rate but not surprising, I think we were paying like $12 per radio back in the day and they are only $18 now.
I have a Juentai 25w dual band stationary radio in my Explorer and I am super pleased with it - I have a pretty nice antenna and both the transmit & receive range is excellent. I'm guessing 10-15 miles at least, maybe more. You can't get this radio anymore though.
If I was starting from scratch I would be looking at Midland GMRS radios... great quality and legal to use.
They could be MURS channels. There are five of them and none of them require a license. The same with FRS channels.
Technically, since the UV5R is a ham radio, even using those frequencies is a violation due to the equipment. For a while, before most of us in the Search Rescue Group got our licenses, we were using channel 5. It had a better chance of busting through the vegetation and giving the best range.
If you use the quick disconnect fasteners with the two side locking prongs for your vehicle antenna and the rubber duck, it will make switching between the two antennas more user friendly.
I’m still working on that myself. Too many projects going at one time and not enough money to do them all. LOL
EDIT: I believe the two side prong adapters are called BNC to SMA. You would have to look at your antenna and the radio to see if they are SMA male or SMA female. If I remember correctly, the UV5R is male and the antenna is female.