Using GPS to Track Teens

jmoloug1 writes An article at CBSNews that describes a new service available to parents. It uses cell phone GPS to track how fast the teens are driving and then automatically sends an alert back to the parents when a certain limit has been exceeded. Bad idea for stupid parents who are going to be outwitted by their kids just turning off the phones? Best of all, it's endorsed by our former chief of military ops in Iraq!"

Comments

It's a joke!

[Anonymous Coward]

SMS - 1:11:05: Jacob is driving 110mph

SMS - 1:11:18: Jacob is driving 120mph

SMS - 1:11:25: Jacob is driving 140mph

SMS - 1:11:29: Jacob is driving 180mph

SMS - 1:11:32: Jacob is driving 220mph

SMS - 1:11:33: Jacob is driving 0mph

Re:It's a joke!

[jeremyp]

Jacob's brother Joseph was travelling along the same road in the other direction also at 220 mph in a car of identical mass.

So What?

[the_mad_poster]

And, I should care... why? Am I supposed to load up my side by side and start booby trapping the hallways to stop the government enforcers or something? Hellloooo, cluestick: who fucking cares? Parents get to keep tabs on their kids, big news. Whoopdy doo. How is this YRO?

Re:So What?

[superpulpsicle]

I don't know what's more embarrassing. To be caught going 100mph on the hightway or 0mph in the backseat in some empty supermarket parking lot.

Re:So What?

[Tassach]

How is this YRO?

Because if parents can track their kids, so can other people. YEs, I'd like to know if my son was speeding, but I *don't* want some for-profit company having access to that data and (for example) selling it to my insurance company or automatically calling the police.

That said, as a parent I'd NEVER subscribe to this service. When I allow my children to drive, it will because they've demonstrated to me that they are mature enough to handle the responsibilty of driving a car. If I don't trust them enough to let them go out on their own, then they're not going out. Inferring that I have to spy on my kids with an electronic beacon is insulting to both me and them.

Re:So What?

[Forbman]

My kids are my responsibility.

My insurance company cares about two things: that I pay my premiums, and that if they can find any way to avoid having to pay out (or finding someone else to get the $$$ from), they will do it.

Some of the ways make sense: stupid people should have to pay stupid person insurance rates. Insurance fraud needs to be tracked down and cost-effectively reduced for all sorts of reasons.

Some of it doesn't: the insurance company has a "right" to track people so it can more easily justify it shouldn't have to pay out for their stupid activities, which they agreed to cover in the first place?

The cops? Well, from a human perspective, if I had to be a first-responder at stupid driver accidents all the time, I would want to try and do something to help prevent it, if only because of the sheer stupidity involved, but realizing that people, even people who think they're doing the right things (like driving 45mph in the left lane of a 60mph highway when there are no other cars around...), I would have to figure out that perhaps the best way is to NOT do too much. Stupid people will always figure out ways to circumvent things. Look at how many people STILL don't wear seatbelts.

Re:So What?

[jcr]

Its OK for you to track your child

If by "OK", you mean "legal", you're probably right. If you mean "OK" as in "a reasonable thing to do", then I must disagree. I'm quite alarmed at the many recent encroachments on their civil rights that children are forced to accept today (drug testing to be on the chess team, for example) because if kids grow up acquiescing to this kind of intrusion, they won't object when the congress decides to make it mandatory.

-jcr

Re:So What?

[ScrewMaster]

Unless the teen looks under the dash and knows what to look for, no one is the wiser.

I would not have been that teen, and neither would most of my friends. If my parents had ever tried that on me I would have found the little bastard all right. Fortunately I learned to drive in the seventies long before this kind of thing was even a gleam in some engineer's eye. But my father was too much of a gentleman to have ever foisted something like that on me, although as an electronics engineer with a Ph.D in nuclear physics he could certainly have done it, even way back then. I agree with the parent ... either trust your children to drive ... or don't. There's not a lot middle ground here since either you're trustworthy enough to drive ... or you're not. Any offspring sufficiently untrustworthy to warrant the installation of such a device probably shouldn't have a driver's license in the first place. Responsibility is commensurate with the degree of risk: cars are as dangerous as handguns in terms of the number of accidental deaths they cause, but we let sixteen-year-olds drive cars. We don't let them carry guns.

Honestly, for most teenagers driving isn't a requirement, it's a luxury: primarily a social one at that. In cases where children have to work just for the family to have enough money to eat it would be different, of course: but survival dictates generally ensure that people in that position grow up fast. They aren't the target market for a teenager tracking system. Rich people don't care either: if their kid totals the car they buy him or her a new one (which explains why so many rich kids are jerks.) This is for the upper-middle-class yuppie type that is too busy counting his money and maneuvering for his next promotion to be bothered with actual parenting.

Raise your kid right and you won't need to worry about putting a GPS tracker in his car. Too much of modern American society has parents willingly giving up their legitimate duties to technology and government. It began with the television (that mind-robbing electronic babysitter) and now we've come to a point where we have so little faith in our ability to teach our children, and so little trust in them, that we need to track their every move.

My own feeling is that if this kind of thing becomes popular, all we will be doing is raising a generation that will be completely unconcerned about such trivial little issues as personal privacy. I'm sure our government would have no objection to that state of affairs.

This is where you...

[Anonymous Coward]

Put your phone on a plane and send it fasttrack two states over, and get someone to send it back.

"I was speeding, dad? 1800mph you say, in the saturn?"

Teens and mobile phones

[RayAlmostAnonymous]

Don't know what it is like elsewhere, but here in the UK: - a teen turn off their mobile phone?? I think not :-)

What action will parents take?

[Ronald Dumsfeld]

This is stupid. Here's why: What will the average parent do when they get an alert by phone that their child is 20mph over the speed limit?

They'll phone them.

Stupid.

Lack of Parenting

[nodehopper]

This sounds like a perfect solution for those parents who have let the TV babysit their kids for years. They rely on content filters to monitor the kids internet usage and only gauge what the kids listen to and watch based upon the current rating system. Now they don't even have to ask where the kids are going. This sounds like another tool for un-involved, distant and lazy parents to pretend like they care about their kids, but it only sends the message that "we don't trust you". What happened to talking and communicating to kids, teaching them right from wrong and then trusting them to do the right thing.

The next Geek Sport

[budgenator]

I can just see all the nerds have competions to see who can get their cell phones to report the highest velocities. I can see every thing rocket motor powered roller skates in the parking lot to spud-guns across the football field.

this addresses teen driving safety how?

[SuperBanana]

How does this address teen driving safety?

Folks- repeat after me. Not Speeding != Safely driving.

Teens have a lot of problems with situational awareness- ie where other cars are around them. This is aggrivated by distractions in the car with them; teenage passengers, unlike adults, aren't as good as recognizing when they shouldn't talk to the driver. MA state law places restrictions on who can be in the car with young drivers.

Teens have a lot of problems with understanding what a car can and cannot do. They've probably never slammed on the brakes to see how slowly their car stops. They've certainly never been on a skidpad. They have no idea what ABS is for (neither do most adults; it's directional stability, NOT 'stopping as fast as possible'). They've never been taught when to steer around obstacles and when to brake for them, and certianly have never been asked to put into practice avoidance skills.

Teens are often given (or buy) the hand-me-down car, with old safety technology, bad tires/brakes/steering. There are exceptions, but it's rarely the rich kid who got a new small commuter car with 8 airbags and traction control who ends up splattered on a tree. It's the kid who works at the supermarket and drives a +15 year old car he/she bought for $500 and whose parents can't afford to help him/her keep it in excellent shape. Nevermind the safety ratings on inexpensive 0-20 year old US-made small cars is absolutely atrocious. Teens also like SUVs.

So basically: they need to focus and have situational awareness, they need to have a based-on-experience understanding of the capabilities of THEIR vehicle and basic car handling techniques, and they need to be driving reliable, safe cars.

Speed comes from a lack of the understanding of the implications (stopping distance skyrockets with speed, for example) and consequences (survivability in a collision plummets, for example). Policing them, just as policing adults, does not solve the root cause. Further- everyone else around them is going to be doing well over the speed limit, so not only are we being hypocritical, but they will be more of a hazard on the road to themselves and others!

I happen to find it hilarious, given light of recent events, that an automotive safety company has a Iraq war leader as their spokesman. Any comments about armour for Humvees, Mr. Franks?

Speeds alone don't really tell a whole lot

[qqaz]

So, let's say I receive a message saying little Billy is going 60 mph. Is this in some residential area with a 25 mph speed limit, or is it on a highway with a 60 mph speed limit?

I don't know!