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Teen Creates Device to Track Speeding
An anonymous reader writes "A teen in Massachusetts has created a device that he hopes will help prevent traffic fatalities among teenagers. The unit plugs into a car and uses GPS to track and report on speeding — but only while the car exceeds a limit set by parents, so as to minimize invasion of the teen's privacy."
Parents set limit to 5mph - track kids everywhere they go.
nt
said teen is tracked down and given a beating for being such a snitch. Film at eleven.
Really, unless this thing hooks the ECU to mandate its use. Or does it work on parental faith alone?
Yes because we can so trust the parents to have the teenager's interests in mind when it comes to these things. Anyway aren't there like different speed limits per area? what if a parent were to set it to 50 and you were bleeping as speeding around in the country.
If you've ever tried to get speed information of out a GPS when its got a weak signal or looses signal tempoarily you'll know it can often calculate excessively high speeds. So whats the chance of the GPS spitting out an incorrect speed ocassionally saying your doing say 100mph and telling your parents this.
Or may be he knows how to find a workaround to protect his privacy...
-- "Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration" - TAE --
couldn't you just take the thing out or un-plug it? then it'd look like you never drove over the speed limit : )
More seriously this relies on the people who are driving (you can do it from 16, right?) being rational and sensible. If they were rational and sensible they wouldn't do it because it would make them look bad to their parents, but they wouldn't do that anyway because they wouldn't want to break the law and risk their lives. If the people weren't rational and sensible they would drive like an idiot anyway and not thing of the consequences (something I think is far more likely).
Further I'm not even convinced that speeding is that dangerous, drink/drug driving is far more likely to result in a fatal accident - and I have met people who do just that for fun. It's idiocy but these are just the people who you'd need to deal with...
*''I can't believe it's not a hyperlink.''
I more thought it would work like the code that detects speed hacks in MMORPGs. You got from point A to point B in X amount of time. The minimum possible speed without teleporting is Y. X Y, therefore you teleported or otherwise speed hacked the client.
How we know is more important than what we know.
And what will prevent the teenager to turn it off? Unless you wire it into car electronic system, it will not have much use if you can simply turn it off. Or do parents get the location where the device is shut down?
I don't want to know how fast my (hypothetical) kid is driving 99% of the time. It's not my business, it's really not, unless he gets hurt, hurts someone else, damages MY property or gets in trouble with the police. I don't care what he does until something happens. THAT'S when I spring into dad-mode. THAT'S when I start to ask questions and yell and devise new and cunning punishments. Until then, it's up to him what he does. Hopefully I'd've raised him smarter than to put himself and his passengers into danger, and I'll assume I did until he proves me wrong.
It's called trust. Remember that?
Triv
The device don't know the speed limit of the road he's on. He can go 70 mph on a 20 mph road. The device won't know.
If you slapped it on a dog and your nosey parents see you as driving through all the neighbors lawns, maybe a school yard or two.
My only regret would not being able to see their faces as this happened
Maybe this should be fitted to the cars of adults - the results could be sent to their local schools to show that they are setting a good example.
I'm assuming they're driving this car in public. Unless they're driving through their room with the door shut how could this be a violation of privacy?
The car is legally the parents responsibility. The teen is legally the parents responsibility. Kids expect so much privacy these days.
That's what I was thinking. My parents were such control freaks, that I had one of them or grandma on my back pretty much the whole time. Even in about half the summer camps or such, one would actually take a vacation to come keep an eye on me. I have no doubt that if such a device had existed, they'd have set the speed limit to 1 mph just for tracking sake.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
It's a nice try from the kid, but
a) who wants to speed, will find a way
b) too anxious parents will ruin this nice idea by abusing it as a standard tracker (boy am I happy my parents never knew how and where I used to party)
c) and if the parents will not, the authorities will abuse this fine device
Great idea to invent a tracking system in a world full of observation. Is this guy somehow related to big brother (not the show, read "1984" to know what I'm talking about)?
...black boxes various authorities and corporations are hawking? Or is this a marketing ploy: "Hey kids, this was invented by a teenager, so it must be cool, right? Order now, and be the first in your gang to have the greatest thing since that iPod doohickey!"
The device, which plugs into the electrical outlet in a car and sits on the dashboard, will monitor a car's speed only when the driver exceeds a specified limit.
.. but that's not what the article says.
Is it a magical device? Because I don't see how it can only monitor the speed of the car only when the car is speeding. It'd need to monitor the speed of the car all the time to know when it starts speeding. I can see that it might only log the GPS location of the car when the speed exceeds a certain amount
http://twitter.com/onion2k
I think this is wonderful. The news is not about tracking teens, nor is it about snooping governments. This is a success story for an young engineer. This kid has seen his invention from conception, through development and prototype, all the way to investment. He has polled his resources and called upon special talents: (from TFA) "Jon's sister, Julie, 21, helped coin the device's name, and Jon's uncle, Kurt Lanza, helped with the computer programming." He has a specific goal in mind. "His program weeds out extra information from the GPS, protecting teens' privacy. Their parents can see what they're doing only if they break the rules set by the parents." IMHO Jonathan Fischer may be a Benedict Arnold to some "Speed Demon" kids, but to proponents of safe driving and to parents who have buried their children, he is a Benjamin Franklin.
Keep going, Jon. Call me if you need a good email checker-er-er.
FairTax baby!
...because GPS cannot get a signal through tinfoil. Even if the device reports you for cutting its power how will it know where it is going?
Goddamn Nurds, always coming up with new ways to get the crap kicked out of them.
Autonomous Retard -- Is your camp safe? UnsafeCamp.com
Years ago we had these digital speedometers that used a magnet on the wheel to detect speed. No need for GPS nonsense.
We learn what we *do*.
What's a teenager doing when he's being monitored by his parents?
What he's doing is not being trusted. So he's learning that his parents do not trust him, and he's learning that they will forcefully impose themselves into his life to coerce his behaviour; he's learning to resent them and he's learning that speeding is only wrong because it is prohibited by parents.
So the device plugs into the electrical outlet...surely any teen that's going to go off speeding would simply reverse slowly out of the driveway of their parents house, wave goodbye, drive cautiously round the corner- unplug the thing and dump it in a hedge- speed like mad for the next five hours then pick it up on the way back...
Or am I just too much of a miscreant?
That said, this is probably the best incentive a teen ever had to get a job, save money, and buy his own damn car.
This is not my sandwich.
Should be titled "Teen creates device to prevent himself from ever being invited to parties".
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
"His program weeds out extra information from the GPS, protecting teens' privacy" -- sounds like the GPS unit actually records all the data, but it is isn't until the parents try to view it on the computer that the software blocks out certain data...
The biggest design flaw though has to be that it plugs into the power outlet inside the cabin... just pull it out, and off you go. "Look Mom! no data! I've been good...."
As everyone said, either turn it off, or toss it in some kind of faraday cage or lead box or something, then the device is still on, but it cant track you...
Most vehicle trackers can do exactly what this does. I could produce a system to do this in about an hour, using a permanent covert-install tracker. Not to mention how ridiculously easy it is to block GPS.
This is based entirely on the premise that speeding is the problem, when in fact in most cases it's not. Inexperience, fatigue and alcohol and drug use can all cause accidents both above and BELOW the speed limit. Almost all "speed related" accidents also involve one of the above issues. So why the focus on speeding? Well it's the easiest to target and generate revenue from. It's also a win-win for the government due to the following two arguments. 1) fatalities decrease - "ticketing speeders works to lets increase enforcement (and revenue)" 2) fatalities increase - "we need more enforcement to combat speeding (and generate revenue)" Call me cynical but I'm from Victoria, Australia where speed cameras are proliferating and the tolerance is 3km/h!!! All in the name of safety???
An Irish insurance company had already implemented this technology, using a gps tracker in your car it would track your speed and if you went over the speed limit more than 3 times in any month it would firstly give you warnings then cancel your insurance. It would reduce your insurance but they seem to have stopped using the technology as young male drivers (who were the only ones ment to use this service) didnt sign up in their thousands. I wonder why...
Instead of keeping a static limit on speed there should be a wireless system for each area that broadcasts a constant signal for speed limits and associated area code. This could be accomplished with existing telecom infrastructure already in place (WiFi, WiMax, Mobile network). The vehicle need only be aware of its current location using GPS, from which it can determine the area code and match that with the wireless reception. An automated speed governor would be more effective that way. This sort of system would be useful not only for teens but overspeeding adults, for eg. those already indicted in traffic violations as a mandatory requirement from traffic courts.
Much of teen driving problems come from two sources: overconfidence, and distractions. Some states have laws that permit only a certain number of people in the car at certain stages of the licencing process- and they do that for a reason. Teens are notorious for packing friends into a car to go out and 'have a good time', but the passengers become a major source of distraction. Despite what young drivers may think of their abilities, they need to concentrate on driving, and worry about having 'fun' after they exit the vehicle.
My guess is that the device reads the vehicle speed directly from the on-board diagnostic (OBD) computer. It's already calculating speed and other things in order to keep the engine running properly, so there's no point in using potentially-unreliable GPS data to calculate speed when you can simply plug in to the OBD port and have accurate data provided for you.
I work for a large cemetery. Every year, we have two periods when teens are killed in automobile accidents. The few weeks after school starts and the few weeks after school is out.
These accidents seldom involve speeding. They usually happen in the teens own neighborhood. Losing control of the vehicle and hiting something solid or rolling over cause the fatalities.
Better driver education, more emphasis on seatbelt use, etc. would save more lives than any speed recorder.
Several ways to tamper with the device has already been mentioned. But how about just removing the SD card and removing the violations?
Since it doesn't seem to track the actual speed limit (that would be quite a bit more complex) it seems like it would need a pretty high preset limit. (Or a limit for in city driving.)
It's a pretty neat project though. And making your own hardware box like that is not a small feat for anyone.
Ok, so say the parents set the speed limit at 55... so what if the speed limit is 25? The kid can go 30MPH over the speed limit and the parents would be none the wiser. What about smoking the tires at a red light, or racing? This won't pick it up at all.
I developed a system for a friend of mine to put in his kid's car that uses a MEMS accelerometer. We don't care so much about speed, but rather when the kid is accelerating, either longitudinally or laterally, at unacceptable levels. Basically, if he guns it, takes corners too fast, or brakes hard, we know about it. These factors are far more associated with reckless driving than is velocity. My device also logs the positions of all three pedals and also what gear the gearbox is in.
This not only keeps the kid driving safe, but also allows him to analyze his kid's Solo-2 runs.
That kid is SO gonna get beat up at school.
Don't Tread on Me
are up to 75 mph in some states. So unless you want your kids doing 50 mph on the highway you let them go 75 in the city.
One, I accidentally posted anonymously before. I suppose that's what I get for posting while tired.
Two, after reading TFA a second time, I see that I was wrong about it plugging in to the OBD port. Looks like it just plugs into a 12V outlet for power. I guess not having to deal with lots of different connector cables was more important than having increased data accuracy.
that that is is that that is not is not
I can accept some intrinsic value to trying to curb speeding. But the "foggy windshield detector"? That just seems spiteful...
As someone who was born and raised in Massachusetts I think it would be a disgrace to the great country of Canada mixing them up like that.
Collector's Edition
The problem with GPS and speeding is that it detects when you go above a speed limit (whether it be the one defined by traffic law, or in this case by your parents) but it cannot tell why. What if it's because you're overtaking? In that situation you want to go quite fast (above the limit almost certainly) in order to get back into the correct lane (and in many cases out of the way of oncoming traffic). But with a GPS device like this (and many many others like it that try to counteract speeding) you end up on the shitter for it - even if you were overtaking someone going 20 under the limit so that you could cruise along, unobstructed, at 10 below the limit. Seriously, GPS for the whole speeding thing? Not an ideal solution...
- Frans.
You're right, that's absolutely completely off topic.
Seeing how this particular news site is local to Massachusettes I can't say I agree with you. Also, the article doesn't state anything about Nova Scotia, but talks about him going to Washington D.C. to collect money from some sort of contest that he won and mentions the "University of Massachusetts Traffic Safety Research Program".
Besides... young programmers in a backwater Nova Scotia fishing village? Eh? Isn't that town still on dial-up?
Everyone knows speeding is the only possible cause of traffic accidents. (/sarcasm)
This sort of thinking bugs me no end. Accident statistics clearly show that speed is a contributing factor in a minority (maybe 20%) of accidents and the sole cause of an even smaller percentage. Driving while distracted causes many more accidents.
Yet, where I live, >95% of traffic citations are for speeding. For the last few years, we've had more speeding tickets per year than we have licensed drivers, meaning that on average, everyone who has a license now gets one speeding ticket/year. The majority of these tickets are for minor offences (10 km/h on roads outside built-up areas).
People who coddle their children have them grow into misfits, because they don't know how to act in the real world. On the other hand, people who let their kids run wild have them grow to be criminals and outcasts, because the kids grow witht he notion that it doesn't matter what they do since no one cars.
You should raise a child with plenty of freedom, but make sure the child knows they will be held responsible for their own mistakes. I was given my own car when I was 16 - but I had to pay my own insurance. And I knew if I trashed the thing, or got tickets so my insurance would go up, etc - that Mommy and Daddy would *not* be bailing me out.
Yeah, much safer that kids drive slowly through crack neighbourhoods on their way to buy drugs
Make your kids pay for gas; they would have to work an hour (probably more) as the local burger flipper just to pay for 2 gallons of gas which means they won't be traveling all that far in the Guzzler you bought them. Thus their driving is restricted and your not the one that did it, thus you are safe for criticism and they won't be leaving the area. QED
My mistake. :-P
I read Lunenburg and immediately though of Lunenburg in Canada. Being Canadian, I'm not exactly in sync with all of the cities in the US of A.
we got all those "little black boxes" in new cars nowadays.. it won't be long before they're gps-enabled and the cops & insurance companies want to tap into them 24/7 so they can harrass anyone doing 56 in a 55.
If I was a teenager I would only agree to use the device if my parents agreed to put one in their vehicles as well; put everyone in "the circle of trust". I doubt that would go down well with the parents.
This device also undermines the development of a teenagers ethical sense in that they are no longer responsible to themselves in making driving decisions now that the machine is making that decision for them. At some point in a person's life the parents have to let go and leave their child to learn to be responsible to themselves. Hopefully those lessons have been learned under the guidance of a parent, but machines like this one simply delay that lesson until the device is removed and the child begins to learn on their own. It's like alcohol consumption. When I was around twelve my parents began to allow a drink of wine at Christmas and holidays. Gradually, I was permitted a beer and eventually, around sixteen or so, my dad and I would have a beer fairly regulary after a hard day working in the yard, cutting down trees, or whatever. When I got to university at 19 and was legally allowed to drink, my friends would get crazy drunk and I would laugh and call them retards.
Parents like to think they're protecting their children with devices like this, but it's like sending a soldier to war without ever handling a rifle.
Then smart kids will drive backwards.
Are you sure that is a good idea? There was a gear-head in Germany (IIRC) who reversed the superstructure on his WV Beetle so that the boot was at the front and he looked out what used to be the rear window while driving. He was eventually banned from driving the car due to the fact that the wierd way it looked caused so many accidents.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
They usually happen in the teens own neighborhood. Losing control of the vehicle and hiting something solid or rolling over cause the fatalities.
Their own neighborhood? What the hell were they doing?! 'Ghostriding the whip'?!
I took an internship this summer that forced me to drive a 1/2 hour to work. When you're cutting through a city and then taking the interstate highway every day you tend to see a lot of cars and a lot of crazy driving. I fail to see how children are the only problem, when people from every demographic seem to speed, and not just a little. Is it because the kids are getting hurt? Could that have something to do with inexperience? Or is it just that adult speeding isn't getting reported because they get out of speeding tickets more often (no basis for fact here, just a possibility).
In terms of the specific unit from TFA, Delorme has come out with something that can do relatively the same thing, minus the phoning home. The data it collects can be used in an Atlas or GIS program to do pretty much the same thing as this new unit. The tools have been out there, this teen just used one in a way that would ensure he wouldn't get laid.
That should have been: "Yeah. 'cause my parents were sociopathic killers who stalked me whenever they had the opportunity.
I haven't seen a car made in the past 10 years that uses a mechanical speedo. One of mine has a mechanical speedo cable that goes to a splitter gearbox, that then drives a sensor and a mechanical governor for the power steering, but that's about it.
This makes the kid asking the teacher if there's more homework look like the coolest kid in school!
stuff |
Hasn't this been done before? I swear I saw this in skymall last time I was flying (I love that magazine). If I remember right, it beeped loudly when the driver exceeded a set speed limit or accellerated to quickly. It also could diagnose 4 of the check engine codes.
Interestingly enough, I just read an article on NJ's increase in traffic fatalities. Here's the most interesting quote from that article:
Inattentive driving was blamed for 20 percent of the fatal accidents that occurred on interstate highways in 2004. Excessive speed was named in only one.
(from this story)
Also I think this device is kindof pointless, the parents that would want to monitor their child's speed, probably don't care about their privacy in the first place so they would probably rather choose something that would constantly monitory their speed. (and location)
And I mean come on, like kids aren't going to be able to figure out how to block the reception.
"Besides... young programmers in a backwater Nova Scotia fishing village? Eh? Isn't that town still on dial-up?"
Appearantly you believe that no programming took place before broadband was available.
Wow, if only 90% of slashdotites had experienced the 80s and early 90s as a teen or an adult instead of an infant.
"Freedom in the USA is not the ability to do what you want. It is the ability to stop others from doing what THEY want"
That's exactly how I learned to be a responsible adult. My parents gave me my car, but I paid for insurance, etc.
I always advocate giving your children the freedom to make mistakes. Let them know what the mistake will be beforehand, yes, but then let them learn from it if they insist.
Mom 'n' dad also never really cared if I stayed out, once I had my car. The only thing I had to do was call them - "hey guys, I won't be coming home tonight." "Okay sweetie have fun." Do you know how awesome it is when you never have to ask your parents for permission, and you just notify them? It makes life great, and makes friends jealous. And then you feel good about your parents (positive relationships with parents? *gasp* these days that seems pretty rare), and as long as you don't abuse the privilege they let you keep it. Sure, sometimes it was to get drunk, but I knew if I screwed up and got caught that the privilege would be lost, so I just kept that in mind and learned the meaning of "moderation" to ensure I didn't screw up.
I see too many parents control every aspect of their children's lives with an iron fist. They aren't allowed to go anywhere, or hang out with anyone their parents don't like (usually for superficial reasons). All of their decisions are made for them, without even telling them why or trying to explain a reasoning. "Because I said so."
Why must they insist on "protecting" their children? My parents gave me the tools necessary to "protect" myself. When their parents are no longer active in their life, what tools will they use?
:(){
I saw a device that did this plus some at Upper Edge Security at the Westminister Mall in Westminister, CO. This unit was for sale back in 2001 & 2002 even. The unit used GPS tracking as well. It would log where and when the person went, What their speeds were and you could remove it from the vehicle and connect it to your PC and it would give you a print out of this stuff. I hope this kid doens't try to patent this thing as he will be opening himself up for lawsuits - big time.
If the reporting limit is set to 55 (after all, that's a safe speed - some places), does that mean it won't report them when going 55 in a 20mph zone?
We've secretly replaced Slashdot with new Folgers Crystals - let's see if it notices.
- remove safety belt from drivers seat;
- replace airbag from steering wheel by a 200 mm long, 15 mm thick stainless steel rod;
- sharpen the outer edge of the rod.
Trust me, I work for the government.
I see a point to this device, but not as a blanket solution. Yes, you own your own car, you pay your own insurance, you can blow down the highway at 140mph all you want. Because when the PD decide to pull a felony arrest assuming you're running drugs, it's your ass. However, when it's mommy and daddys car, mommy and daddy's insurance, and kiddo over there can't seem to stop getting speeding tickets, I see this as a useful tool as a last ditch alternative to pulling a car(which in some cases is bad for both parents and kids, as the parents don't really want the kids around all the time, but can't afford all the damned tickets). It gives the kids a long term chance to redeem, and the parents some data to go off of. I like it, and I'm only 23.
... so you won't mind your boss tracking you as well, just to ensure you don't call in sick when in fact you just felt like taking a day off to go to the beach or go see a ball game. And you won't mind if the DOT tracks you as well with even more sophisticated technology in order to automatically ticket you any and every time you speed, run a red light, or fail to come to a complete stop at a stop sign. The city can also track you and automatically issue parking tickets the INSTANT your meter runs out. And you won't mind your spouse tracking you to make sure you come straight home from work or just to check up on where you've been lately.
Any of these entities can claim a similar right based on their relationship with you (employer, government, spouse, etc.) And if you don't like it, you can just go find yourself another job, spouse, mode of transportation, and place to live.
Hello 12 volt tracking device, meet 120 volt house current.
What privacy?? Sorry, but kids living at home are not entitled to any privacy except that which is granted to them by their parents.
So, this is where all the privacy cries are coming from. Schools are teaching kids that they have some inherent right to privacy...welcome to the real world, people. There is no such thing as privacy. It is possible to live with a certain degree of privacy, but you will have to give up many of the creature comforts provided by todays technology.
Just jam GPS signals locally. Problem solved. Others created. :)
n /0093.html
http://www.landfield.com/isn/mail-archive/2003/Ja
If you know enough to make that work, you can identify several modifcations to make it much more effective.
Obviously, the legal implications of doing such are left as a exercise to the reader.
..don't panic
just make parents more aware of Ritalout.
Before broadband was available dialup didn't eman crippled. Duh.
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
I dont think tracking the location of a Car with GPS is very special. Neither is using the formula speed = distance / time. Sorry, not much of a creation.
Maybe there should be some sort of trade off- the device also relays CCTV footage of what's going on at home when the teen isn't there. Then lets see how many parents want to fork out for one...!
Just because your friend's parents gave him a brand new sports car when he earned his driver's license and you saved up $200 for a used pile of sluggish rust doesn't mean you should hold it against said friend.
I'll be your candy shop of infinite deliciousity if you'll be my discotheque of endless rump-shaking.
I would not mind seeing an option on reporting the actual location, for adults at least. Otherwise I don't see any privacy concerns. Speed limits are there for your safety and that of those around you. How fast you were going is never a matter of privacy.
It's true that alomst everyone speeds.
Your assertion about safety is not supported by facts - it's mere rationalization by people who want to speed.
I live in a major metropolitan area. I don't drive over the speed limit, and I pass people on the highways regularly. I have not had more "close calls" than I did when I drove aggressively - in fact, my experience is that I have fewer.
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
I ask my son to see his report card, I don't take his word for it. If he's supposed to be home at midnight, I stay up until he gets home, I don't take his word for it. I make him keep his bedroom door open when he has his girlfriend over to "do homework."
I trust my son. I let him borrow my car. I trust him to watch his sister. I trust him to stay at home overnight by himself on occassion.
But if you think a 16 year old won't lie through his teeth to get out of trouble, you're insane. There is no question about this.
Your comments suggest to me that you're either a child yourself, or you've never raised a child yourself. Nothing personal, but if you "trust" your teenager to act like a responsible adult, you're probably making a mistake. There's a reason that 18 is the age of majority, and not 15, 16, or even 17. If you quit parenting at 16 because you think you've done a good enough job so far, you're just begging for trouble.
... implant a chip in their brain that tracks when they have unprotected sex and drink alcohol and do drugs and smoke and and and and ...
yes GPS does mess up I actually use a Garmin Etrex which maintains a recent record of where when and how fast.
Glitches occur but normally its a speed of around 400 to 700Mph also the track ignores roads completely.
So glitches are pretty obviously glitches.
On the otherhand this device is irrelevent. children do not drive cars, adults do.
16 is not a child but a young adult. Old enough to enlist in most countrys. If someone drives like an idiot then it isn't up to the parents to take the keys away. The State should take the licience away.
If your going to give someone adult responsibility then treat them like an adult!
Blarney Quality Restaurant, Plants
"Live as if you'll die tomorrow." Ridiculous. You could die later today.
So basically he took a GPS unit and did distance / time, then checked this against a used defined speed. How novel...
Seeing that PDA's with GPS receivers and hackable/programmable satnav systems are already available for years, I fail to see why this is so special. A lot of cars even record trip speeds in the onboard computer anyway
Also, kids under 18 shouldn't be driving anyway (like it is in the rest of the world), and above 18 they are supposed to be responsible enough not to need parental monitoring and control for such things anyway.
I'm not sure for what kind of behaviour would that count as "deserved". My whole life until finishing university was basically a prison sentence. And, no, I'm not exaggerating. I don't feel like going into all the details -- and it would end up a tome-sized message if I did -- but let's just say I'm not exaggerating.
So what evil deed wouly you count as "deserving" something like that? Because we let murderers and rapists get away with lighter sentences. So what _can_ a kid do that's worse than that?
I'm pretty sure I didn't beat anyone up, didn't steal, etc. Not that I'd have had an opportunity to. But again, even for those we let people get away with lighter sentences.
Oh, I did go out of guidance as soon as I was out of surveillance range, out of sheer lack of clue. I almost never had to function without a parent telling me _exactly_ what to do, when and how. (And then telling me how horrible shitty job I had done. They didn't really believe in positive feedback.) So, yes, I did all sorts of stupid things on the rare occasions when I was outside my parents' "remote control" range.
Does that "deserve" even more surveillance there? How does that solve the problem? Because from where I stand, it looks like that's what caused the problem in the first place.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
The government through government schooling has bread the pinnacle of government agendas: The citizen who spies on himself. If fact it is so successful that in the absence of a government monitoring device, that the citizen will create one just for being monitored.
I have been told that in Russia people must register with the government any time they leave their local jurisdiction for more than 3 days. When the USSR collapsed, there was no registration. But the people cried out for it. How was the government to provide for them if they didn't register?
Now I ask how does the government know you're not a criminal or terrorist unless you constantly monitor yourself can can funrish records upon request? How much trouble will you be in if you can't explain gaps in your monitoring?
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
This is a pure "survival of the fittest" situation. With this device in place, there will be a lot more morons walking around. (who will probably end up killing themselves doing something else retarded) What we need to do is make ejectable seats that spring out when a collision is imminent. (but first make sure nothing is above you)
I think that using the device in accordance with the media spin in the article is a good thing. I think that parents have the right to revoke any constitutional or privacy rights that a child might otherwise have. What I a problem with is the whole "think of the children" spin, without consideration of what else it might be used for. What is to prevent an employer, an abusive spouse, or an insurance agency from requiring it. If you are driving on company time, or in a company car, it is there right; but more and more, I see companies that want to control a persons life outside of work in order to protect the comany image. Companies that have banned all workers from smoking, even in there own homes on there own time. If they could limit it's use to a child and parent I am all for it
or if they unplug the device...
http://www.motorists.org/issues/speed/index.html
These people seem to have compiled and summarized a whole bunch of research about what speed limits should be set to and what actually causes accidents.
I'd like a device like this for myself. It would need to know the speed-limit of all roads and warn me when I'm over the limit. There could even be a speed-limiter (easily to disable, if necessary).
Not that I'm speeding a lot, but once in a while I find myself too fast because I'm not aware of the limit.
Markus
but want tracking devices for their kids. If you really think you need one on your kid's car then don't let them drive. I have to share the road with your kids.
Of course this is from Massachusetts, that state will do anything in its power to "Save just one child".
This kind of product has been commercialized in select cities in Canada for a while now. The Otto has a map of speed limits, intersections, photoradar, etc. http://www.myottomate.com/
Either by ignoring their kids or crushing them with the weight of monitoring and impossible expectations. Sounds like your parents were closer to the latter camp than the middle. Sorry about that.
My job as a dad is to become less and less controlling with my kids - to give them enough lattitude to make errors where the consequences are minimal. I knew a guy in HS whose uncle bought him a Corvette at 16. He totalled it, and his uncle bought him another one! DUMB!
I allow my kids as they mature to have more freedom - when they blow it with bad judgment, I discipline them to help them learn to use better judgment next time.
By the time they leave my house, they should have the skills to operate successfully in the world - personal integrity, honesty, work ethic, compassion for others, operation of basic power tools, operation of a motor vehicle, discipline about sleep, discipline about eating, conflict resolution, know the importance of relationships with others, and the ability to self-educate.
Until that time, I believe strongly in "trust, but verify." I have no issue at all with tracking a kid using my car, my gas, my insurance, living in my house. In general, I will be able to ignore the logs because I have enough RELATIONSHIP with my kids to have a pretty good idea about how trustworthy they are. If the systems I put in place to check up on them show me that my trust is misguided, then I have an opportunity to shapre their character with additional discipline.
Within the bounds of the limits I set up for them, they have complete freedom! They will (and do) get MUCH more by living within the fairly wide open spaces I define for them than they could "get away with" by lying and breaking my rules.
Finally, I'd like to point out that biologically, kids brains are not at full maturity until the early-mid twenties - specifically the part of the brain that influences reasoning and judgment is still in development at 16. This is a BIG factor in kids making good choices, and I need to protect them as they don't yet have the strong skills to navigate the rough waters they are in.
Once again, I apologize for overbearing, critical, controlling parents. They obviously didn't know what they were doing.
Respectfully,
Anomaly
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
You can't put perfect faith in this type of technology, for any purpose. On one car trip, my GPS recorded a max speed over 2000 mph. It apparently dropped a bit in longitude. The track showed that I moved a couple hundred miles west for the duration of one GPS update -- then it got a correct update, and I moved back, just as quickly. (Boy will dad be mad when he finds out I broke the sound barrier again. :)
Computers obey me.
jackass
This is the pasted original
We have a Garmin C320 GPS in our car. Our teenagers really love it because it keeps them from getting lost, and it helps them to make curfew (it tells estimated arrival time). We (the parents) love it because it has a (not so obvious) screen that shows the maximum speed, trip length, time stopped, etc. Every once in a while I check it "just to make sure". Now, it is easy for them to a) turn it off or b) reset the max speed. The former I can't prevent. As for the latter, well, I always know what the maximum speed was (down to a tenth of an mph) so if they reset it and then it shows a lower number than it had been previously, I can tell.
So far we've only had to make an issue of this once -- when it read 111mph! Turns out it is a portable GPS and they had put it in a friend's car (a vintage Trans Am), and he had gone on a drag track with it. Now I know alot of you are thinking "you bought that line?", but I seriously doubt our 7 year old minivan with 125K miles on it could go that fast even if it wanted to. Ditto for the '97 4 cylinder beater they drive. Anyhow, it spawned a nice discussion about the dangers and risks of driving really fast.
The more you regulate a company, the worse its products become.
http://www.TrackStick.com
I think in discussions like these, you should reveal your age, whether you're married, and whether or not you have any children. So at least we can separate out actual parents, potential parents, and all the teenagers.
I think we'd find a clear delineation of what the words "trust", "parenting", "privacy", and "responsibility" mean along these strata.
I am 23, married, and I have no children.
I think that this particular idea isn't the best one, but the idea that parents should simply rely on their teenager's good judgment is fairly ridiculous. My parents "bought" me a car with my college savings to reward me for earning a full-ride scholarship. By then I had earned their trust by borrowing their car for a year and returning it every night in good condition.
Automobiles are very dangerous - often times through no fault of the driver. Little things can have major consequences. EVERY first-time driver should be an extra-defensive driver. This goes against the natural instincts of putting people in cars (witness the first time you put a kid in a go-cart, or on a bike, or any other vehicle.) So literally, an instinct must be tamed, and this requires time and effort. It is not something you magically acquire on your 16th birthday.
Im 16, i drive,
if i was not trusted i would not be allowed to drive my parents car.
i would be expected to by my own, pay rego, insurance, speeding fines.
it would not be hard to disable a divice like this. there would be 4 "targets" where it got its information (the speedodomiter), the batterey (power), the antanna and the divice mich accdently have coolent(offen mattalic baised to improve heat absorbtion) spilt on it.
A parent demonstrated the same device 3 years ago on TV. Showed that he caught his son doing 42 in a 35 zone.
Seems like the older device was better as it somehow showed the speed limit of the road with the speed of the car.
I don't see how this MA kid recently "invented" this device.
You can lose something that is loose, so tighten the loose item so you don't lose it.
If this thing only tracks where and when the speeding occurs (and so doesnt record data the rest of the time) what's the difference between unplugging the device and staying within the speed limit??!
Traitor!
If I read this correctly said device was designed by a teen.........Having being a teenager myself (as many of you have) I must ask myself what kind of moron creates this kind of technology to screw his fellow teenage kind. I mean, honestly....
If you think your kid should be monitored 24/7 maybe it isn't a good idea to let him/her have a car in the first place. They way people learn is by making mistakes (in this case having (hopefully minor)accidents). After getting my own license I drove a car total loss before learning my own personal lesson (pouring rain, old tires, sharp corners & stupid poles in the middle of nowhere don't mix).
Let your children make mistakes or they'll never grow up.
...I should point out that despite paying my own insurance and working my ass off to purchase my own first (second-hand) vehicle, I ended up totalling it. Not because of particularly reckless driving, but because I didn't have the experience to recognize that swerving to avoid an animal is not worth it.
So it's no guarantee of safety, but it definitely makes you somewhat less reckless than you might otherwise be, I'd say.
picpix image polls. create - share - vote. fun!
Privacy? While driving a car the parents probably paid for, under the parents insurance. If the kids want privacy, let them buy their own car and pay their own insurance... and rent too! geeesh.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Sheesh. Slashdot--where unemployed seventeen-year-olds give parenting advice.
If we accept, for the sake of argument, that use of this device could reduce the rate of traffic accidents, then why should it be used only between parents and their children? After all, we made speed limits an enforceable legal requirement -- so if children are responsible to their parents, why shouldn't their parents be responsible to the civil authorities (and thereby their fellow citizens) in the same way? Why not rig the device to report your position and speed to law-enforcement officers, so they can question you or send you a ticket? Why not put them in every car, and require each driver to "log in" before going someplace?
I think it's a terrible idea, and I would not use such a device with my own children. People of all ages will take risks and sometimes have accidents, but that is part of the responsibility we must each take for ourselves. If I didn't believe my children would drive responsibly, I wouldn't permit them to use my car. But "safe and responsible driving" is more than just obeying the speed limit and staying in your lane -- it also requires awareness of your surroundings, and attention to the other drivers on the road. Every day I encounter adults on the road who, by that standard, ought to have their licenses revoked. I don't believe that we can make anybody a better driver by giving them an electronic Jiminy Cricket...it's just another distraction to make the driver to pay more attention to the dashboard than to the road.
If I were a teen and my parents had this and set the limit at say 80MPH, you can be damn sure I'd be driving 79MPH at every chance I got.
I drive a ton on the roadways for work and in my commute and I can say that the top three causes of wrecks I personally witness (which is close to one a day) are:
1. Speeding/Weaving in heavy traffic
2. No turn signal use
3. Distractions: Cell phone, Kids, eating a bowl of ceral at 70MPH (no shit actually saw that one)
And while many like to rag on SUV's, I will say that a large majority of the above activities are seen most by me in SUV drivers. I believe it is a false sense of superiority and safety that these drivers think they have.
http://teasphere.wordpress.com - A little spot of tea
If he could invent something similar that activates when the panties come off, he might be on to something..
What kid won't either unplug the unit, or make up a GPS jammer to keep it from doing its job? These people aren't even trying to circumvent the minds of the younguns. It needs to be mounted under the hood hooked up to the battery. On top of that, the hood needs a key-locking mecanism by the pull lever on the driver side so that the teen can't circumvent this technology.
Sig: I stole this sig.
Why are all the draconian loonies getting modded to +5, insightful? Please mods, moderate on the side of reason.
"Live as if you'll die tomorrow." Ridiculous. You could die later today.
Can you imagine how often this kid is going to get beat up if parents start using this tech? I expect some jock has this kid's head shoved down a toilet for just thinking about developing this.
...I find my mom in the passenger seat on her cellphone to be more distracting than anything. When I have fellow teens in the car, I tell them to shut the hell up. I didn't pay for the car, only the insurance, but my mom wrecked it when we first got it off the lot. I'm 19 now, got the car when I was 15 (didn't even have a permit) and have kept it in mint condition. Some think that it's brand new, and are appauled to learn that it is almost half a decade old :D I take pride in the things that are given to me or earned by myself.
Sig: I stole this sig.
Because everyone speeds by atleast a mile over the limit everywhere they go...except for old people, then it is just a left blinker on.
The phrase "more better" is acceptable English. suck it grammar Nazis
Let's see... A countermeasure for this device should be as simple as a litle RF generator that fuzzes out the GPS over a short range. .1 watts should be plenty. I'm sure a lot of kids would pay fifty bucks for that.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
http://www.drdetailshop.com/v200.htm
Plus more, this one will even call your cell phone if a set speed has been exceeded.
Some kid hacks the programs and is able to pull off the following :
"Yeah, I smell like Pot, but you can check the GPS records, we were transported by aliens to amsterdam where all kinds of things are legal and I was just trying to embrace and experience the local culture... See, right there, I drove around Amsterdame for a solid 6 hours tonight."
I'm a fiscal conservative, it's a pity we don't have a political party anymore
There already is such a product on the market called the CarChip. I am a partner in an exotic car rental company and we use them to scan for potential abusive driving of cars if cars are returned with mechanical damage.
You can set the CarChip to monitor RPM, acceleration, speed, etc. They record data at 1 second intervals, store 300 hours of drive-time data, they are absolutely tiny and thus can be surreptitiously placed in cars, they plug into the industry standard OBDII port which all model year 1996 or newer cars have, and they report incidences of being disconnected so you know if somebody has tampered with them.
You just disconnect them and plug them into a USB port to download all the data to the included software.
The fully featured models cost about 300 bucks.
Not perfect, but it's a pretty damned good solution if you want to monitor your teenager's driving. I would recommend disclosing it to them and just telling them that if they disconnect it you will consider it just as bad as if you catch them doing 120 on the highway, and that you will see any disconnect events in the log.
Ah, the magical switch that flips when a kid turns 18, making him a responsible adult....
Yes, it's called "lack of legal liability on the part of the parents".
At 18, he can pay his own lawsuit fees thank you very much. If in eightneen years he or she has not leanred enough self control to not need to do so, then good luck...
but really sixteen is not a good age to turn over the reigns of responsibiltiy because hormones are still somewhat new to a lot of people. A few years of guidance from parents and then they are going to be as ready as they can be.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
How dare you come here and pretend you know all the answers! If you knew anything about parenting*, you'd know telling a kid not to do something is the surest way to get it to do exactly that. (Unless, of course, severe emotional penalties were guaranteed if the kid f___s up - which would be unnecessary in the first place if things are done right.)
The key to a child's weel-being is something other than parenting - the key words are raising and bringing up. Tell a child fire burns, spreads and consumes, let him have a chance to see it, he'll know when fire is safe and unsafe - and what's more, he'll understand by himself when he understands it well enough to handle it. Tell a child a knife can cut you, show him how to handle a knife safely and that a dull knife is a dangerous knife - the child will treat knives with caution.
On the other hand, throw a child into some sort of emotional dependency, looking to his parents to see if any endeavour he indulges in is ok - you'll have an emotional wreck by the time the child turns twenty. The child will rightly question why he shouldn't be trusted for many, many years, and eventually take for granted he's in no place to question authority.
Furthermore - if the parents have done the right groundwork - once the child hits the teens, it will be much less prone to doing stupid things for three reasons: It knows its own limits, it has a stronger grasp on what it wants, and it's sure enough of itself that it doesn't need to run around proving itself to people yonder and sundry.
Again, the key words are raising and bringing up - which together lay a great foundation for education. "Parenting" is but a muddled expression of emotional entanglement.
*) I do not acknowledge parenting to be more of a word than boo-boo and pee-pee, in fact even less. It lacks the precision to express anything useful and only serves as a way to obscure the fundamental issues in an attempt to establish the moral high ground.
Automatic Position Reporting System (APRS) Designed by Bob Bruninga http://eng.usna.navy.mil/~bruninga/aprs.html it uses a GPS, an encoding circuit and a radio. Reports position and speed onto a national frequency with digital repeaters and Internet gates. Most systems also report speed and some people have set up their digipeaters to send out alerts if someone goes past a set speed. In most metros and everywhere else all the data is logged and posted online. http://www.findu.com/ The system has been expanded to include weather reports and other data as users see fit on the network.
With this I have LIVE position and speed reports from the car. I don't have to worry about it getting "knocked loose" or something else "happening" to the unit, I've got it installed in the car nice and secure.
If you want to give them similar features to this other "new" gizmo, install a TinyTrak http://www.byonics.com/ and set it to only report when going over a set speed.
Driving recklessly, however, is bad. ;)
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
That said, I see a lot of comments here that are obviously from young folks that have never raised a child. Every child is different, and trust isn't a boolean operation, it's a float. I've never had to worry about my son getting in fights, doing drugs, or making out with his girlfriends -- he's been exemplary in all these areas. I trust him more than most adults, and we have a great relationship. On the other hand, he likes to drive fast. I DON'T trust his decision making when he's driving (especially with friends) because he likes to show off.
The bottom line is that everybody has areas where they excel, and areas where they need some help. I trust my daughter's driving, but worry about her choice in friends. My co-worker is a Window's genius, but I wouldn't trust him to patch Solaris. A parent's job isn't to trust blindly, it's to extend trust when it's deserved. My son is a great guy, and it would be nice to let him take the car for the weekend, knowing I'd get an IM/email anytime the car went over 75mph. In some cases this device could be beneficial. After all, your kid might be on the road the next time my kid gets behind the wheel -- wouldn't we both feel better if he weren't going 120 mph?
...myself, in particular one who is about to receive a car of my own (15-16 is learner permit age, 16-17 is full licence age, varying by state), this story hits very close to home.
It goes without saying that the parents have the right to put the tracking device in their own car when giving it to their kid. The problem comes in when they try to put the device in the teenager's own car, one that the teenager was either given as a gift (and had all the ownership papers transferred to them, etc, etc) or paid for in their own cash. I think, at 16, you have the right to control what you own.
My reasoning is that at 16 and 17, you start gaining other rights and responsibilities, such as the right to move out, and the responsibility to be tried as an adult in court. While your parents may still be supporting you at that age, they also lose the right to control you. Freedom alone does not make for a sense of responsibility, but it just isn't morally right to allow parents full control over their kids at that kind of age. Things like hidden cameras and GPS tracking systems are available to the public these days - I think it's of increasing importance to establish these principles as law.
Full disclosure: I have never done the proper legal research on this.
I find this new kind of technology very scary, because of it's potential for spying and control from afar. There are many, many more moral ways to keep your kid out of trouble, albeit with more work on the parent's part.
http://www.deflektor.com/
This is just one more example of the direction our country is going. The government is already pre-emptively watching our every move without any legal justification. Whether its logging our phone calls and internet activity, or monitoring our financial records, you can't hide anymore.
Now, suddenly, we're getting bombarded by ads for devices to track and control what our children can or can't do, under the guise of convenience. Many of these items have been around for nearly 5 years, so why is it only now that they are getting around to pushing these tools on parents?
Parents are already afraid to spank a child for getting into trouble, so who wouldn't snatch up all these new tools to pre-emptively ensure their child can do no wrong? If children can't get into trouble, you don't have to risk confronting them directly... right?
In the meanwhile, the child in question is quickly becoming more and more desensitized to living in a world of constant mistrust and surveillance. By the time these children become adults, will our government's monitoring techniques be seen as justified through transference, after having been constantly monitored in a similar fashion by their own parents?
If we, as adults, don't start demanding government limitations on what can and can't be monitored, freedom as we know it will be lost by the time the next generation is in control of things.
8==8 Bones 8==8
Just unplug it.
Too bad this kid is just another one of the brainwashed masses following the IIHS and NHTSA. The FACT is, speed does NOT "kill" as people like to simplify. This has been proven when the National speed limit was repealed. All the "speed kills" masses said we would have thousands more highway fatalities... it didn't happen, and, in fact, highway fatalities have been reducing ever since. It just pisses me off when a kid who knows too little (and is in it for the money, as he clearly states) gets publicity for being a lemming.
I remember a while ago (this was when the speed limit was still 55), we had a "Civil Obedience day" where a number of folks all got together as a convoy and drove the speed limit. The resulting traffic jam made the point better than any speech ever given on the subject.
Here's a history lesson: once upon a time, the law was that you had to drive at a safe and prudent speed. That worked until the podunk sheriff who wanted to make a little extra cash decided that safe and prudent on a 4 lane road was 15 mi/h. Speed limits were invented as a curb against overzealous law enforcement. If you were driving under the posted speed limit and there were no extenuating circumstances, you could be presumed to be driving safely. But then those podunk sheriffs realized that they could paint anything they want on the sign. This is how El Camino Real between Santa Clara and South San Francisco - a road whose essential character remains unchanged as a 6 lane thoroughfare for its entire length - can have the speed limit change at least once every 10 miles.
When speed limits are set correctly - at the 85th percentile speed observed in a neutral traffic survey (not uniformed officers holding radar guns, like they do in L.A.), that's one thing. But when the limit on Interstate 280 between San Francisco and Cupertino is 65 mi/h, that's just ignoring reality.
Coulden't you just take out the card format it and put it back in the box?
Error 2101: all your sig are belong to us
how bout i just unplug the thing?
physical security vs. digital security... gotta love it.
Seriously, it's bad enough that parents want to track kids. Now kids are helping parents track kids.
Wake up!
Sometimes it's unsafe to go slow because others are speeding, but other times it's because it backs up traffic and causes other related issues. When you've got a major roadway which fills up at a particular time (say when everyone goes to or gets off of work), having cars proceeding slowly allows for less intake of vehicles towards the rear. This in turn leads to clogged onramps and general traffic buildup. Of course, this would still be somewhat ok if not for the fact that people do stupid things, but in the even where somebody feels he/she must get somewhere, he/she will take the chance of cutting others off and doing other stupid traffic stunts, even if not actually speeding.
Everyone must of have known kids like this highschool, you know the billwg wannabes.
The dweeb has said "Some people think (my plan) is bad, and I'm on the parents' side," he said. "Teens should still be able to have their privacy -- and they'll get it if they drive safely. It's not so much to get kids in trouble as it is to open lines of communication with parents."
What a load of crap, what he and the rest of the track your life crowd are hoping for is either a self-rightous politician or an insurance company to come by and mandate these kinds of things for everyone or at least for drivers under the age of 24 (age discrimination).
Lets hope the captain of the football team gets caught and causes some locker filler time to happen to "Mr. Fischer". Then maybe he will come to his senses and go to where the big money is, "white collar" crime.
I wish I had mod points so I could mod this down.
But I don't, so I guess I'll just set you to foe.
~= scwizard =~
It's not how you get the car, it's how you respect it. I know plenty of people that bought their own vehicles and then sent them to car-heaven. Heck, my own cousin I wouldn't let within 50 feet of the driver's seat.
I also know plenty of people who had cars bought for them and respected the vehicle, no crashes. There is a line, but it doesn't start at buying the vehicle. Some parents that will happily and repeatedly bail their kids out of automobile issues (crash car, parents pay to fix it or buy a new one), and even an experienced driver might be a but lead-footed if they were given (or bought) a viper or other such vehicle. I was bought my first car, it wasn't too flashy (88 Camry) but it was a stick so it had some juice to it, and I didn't do anything stupid enough to pile it into a cliff. I respected my vehicle, because I knew it was the only one I was getting, but more importantly because I didn't want to end up in the hospital or the morgue.
Nowadays, I've actually been finding that most bad drivers are not kids, and I've seen lots of bad drivers. The situation is aggravated by people who subject themselves to continual distractions while driving (cellphone, DUI, superloud stereo etc). There are plenty of adults out there who run lights, lane-change unsafely, and (my personal pet-peeve) block up the roads with their 3-car-length motorhomes towing SUV's and driving 30km under the limit.
Essentially, it's not an issue of being given a car, it's being given more than you can handle. John Doe might not be able to handle driving a flashy sports car, regardless of whether it was gifted or earned. That you were able to earn your own vehicle and drive it safely speaks for your personal maturity, but doesn't indicate that you would have been a terrible driver had it been gifted to you.
Also, one should keep in mind that the idiot drivers who buy their own car and total it aren't drivers for sometime afterward for the simple fact that they often can't afford another vehicle.
"Trust, but verify."
This space intentionally left (almost) blank.
When you realize that your child wants their freedom, and you have tried many technique...I suggest you just back off. Unless, that is, you want to poison the relationship and die alone in a nursing home or something.
It also helps if you have logical reasons for forbidding certain behavior. Definately don't use religious excuses...kids these days aren't buying that supersticion anymore.
Blar.
I'm confused. Did he invent APRS? Or did he invent "turning on a gps reciever and putting it in automatic waypoint mode?"
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
No teen created gps, and anything you can do with gps is pretty self explanatory. This teen has created nothing. This is a service, that if was in any way popular would easily be taken over by a real company. Plus, with software any cellphone could easily already do this and more.
If it plugs into a cigarette lighter and sits on the dash...
Why not just unplug it?
An improvement to the system would be to take the GPS location, check it against known local speedlimits, and then register any driving +10mph over the local limit.
Another nice feature would be to report when the car travels more than a set radius of miles from home. If the kids are sneaking over the border for illicit activities, parents might wish to know this.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
They are still only adults in training, and quite frankly, they are terrible at it.
I think parents should have full access to knowing their children's whereabouts and activities 24/7, 365 days per year (366 on leap years) until their children leave home. Teens are adults in training, not adults.
Reminds me of the song "Speed Demon" by The Dwarves. But it's not about speeding I presume...
Let them get use to not having any privacy in this new world order of ours.
Seriously who is it out there who is 15 and sitting around thinking to himself "hmmm...I wish my parents could watch me more...maybe I should solve their problems for them with an electronic device"...this guy doesn't deserve to have the lunch money that will inevitably get taken from him
Try google: http://www.google.com/search?q=gps+speed+monitor
Rental car companies have gotten into trouble for trying to fine drivers who exceed some limit.
The first teen driver monitor I saw was from Autotap and was code-named "narc on Lisa" because the inventor wanted to make sure his daughter Lisa wasn't doing anything bad. This one plugged into the car's OBDII port, monitored various vehicle parameters such as speed, ignition state and the current time, could sense if it had been disconnected and record that fact.
The "invention" in the original article is neither original nor noteworthy.
Ah, trust... that's a funny concept. See, the funny thing is that at least mom actually trusted me and my brother. Or claimed to. I think we were pretty trustworthy kids, too, since basically (A) we didn't get enough time on our own to do anything bad anyway, and (B) for all other faults our education might have had, it was almost caricaturally Lawful Good.
Mom and dad were, and largely still are, complete nerds, and nerds often end up fond of distorted caricatures utopic ideals. Mom would have made a perfect D&D Paladin. Lawful Good to the bone, and willing to fight to death for the Right Thing. Regular knight in shiny armour, sworn to do her duty, and all that.
So we too got educated to honesty believe that kind of a distorted utopia. Don't lie, don't do anything bad, the good guys always win, etc. I _still_ have problems even playing an evil character in a video game like Knights Of The Old Republic, so I have trouble imagining that I would have been an evil backstabbing SOB as a kid.
Unfortunately if you've ever read about Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder, by now you also see the problem there. There's a name for that black-and-white good-vs-evil view of the world, and it's OCPD. OCPD people see very few shades of grey, if any. They live by the rules, do The Right Thing (TM), and anything less than a _perfectly_ done job is crap.
And so it came to apply to being a parent too. In mom's knight-in-shiny-armour view of the world, there were (and still are) no shades of grey between being completely uninvolved and smothering the living sanity out of us. Anything short of being 100% involved in 100% of what we ever do, would have counted as having failed her duty.
The same, incidentally, applied to everything we did too. Even a misplaced comma counted as a badly done homework in mom's view of the world. Hence the neverending negative feedback, and occasionally even more annoying consequences. She tried to turn us into, well, something that fit her black-and-white view of the world, and clearly in the white category at that.
I guess her being an Asperger's case there doesn't help either.
At any rate, rest assured that it wasn't lack of trust that basically cost me and my brother some 24 years each out of our lives. On the contrary. We were the most trusted prisoners ever. But, nevertheless, had a childhood and teenage life that is best compared to life in a federal prison.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
1. The ideal speed limit is the 85th percentile of driver speed.
2. Raising and lowering the speed limit has little to no effect on the speed people will actually drive.
3. Most places set the speed limit at the 45th percentile or so.
These are facts. A study by the DoT says so, not me.
From this can we not conclude that lowering the speed limit, which the government is well aware will be ignored, is only a revenue-generating tactic?
Furthermore, can we not conclude that, since we KNOW people will drive at whatever speed they deem reasonable (the 85th percentile), lowering the speed limit to something far lower than this causes problems? Specifically, there's always going to be a few people who follow the posted limit, but they are suddenly slow-moving, unexpected obstacles in a river of fast-flowing traffic.
Please feel free to look at the research yourself, but don't just assume that Big Brother Knows Best and the speed limits are there for safety. In fact, Seems that raising the limit, to remove the annoying blockheads who are going 20mph slower than everyone else, actually makes the roads SAFER. You'll also find that raising the limit does not cause everyone to start driving really fast, contrary to what you claim above. You can state your "I think" all day long, but experimental data overrides you.
mirrorshades radio -- darkwave, industrial, futurepop, ebm.
Remove Tin Foil hat and use it to cover the GPS antenna. Suddenly you are going 0 Mph. Unless this stuff is built into the car's electronics system, kids will be smart enough to bypass it's features. Unless you can audit the GPS unit with the odometer, you can't trust that it isn't being jammed/foiled. If you created a device that would project meatspin or goatsemarathon on the windshield if you drove over 55, it would be much more successful.
There are a lot of those running around. There are two here in Denver, Colorado, and I've seen them in California and Oregon.
The coolest one I've ever seen was in Christchurch, NZ: it was dual-ended. Both the front and rear were VW front ends. It was really spooky.
One of the ones here in Denver I've seen over a period of three years, so I'm guessing nobody has a problem with it.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
Is this just a set speed (e.g., 70Mph), or can it actually tell if the car is exceeding the current speed limit? How could it know what that is (didn't see it in TFA)?
Just as one more detail as to how far that trust went. Mom apparently trusted me enough to tell me all her secrets. Other people go to church to confess, mom used me for that. I'd say that's pretty trusting.
What she couldn't do, really, was _delegate_. It's a pretty common symptom in OCPD, actually. Basically it's not as much about whether you believe someone is "trustworthy" as such, but whether you believe that they'll get something done to your unrealistic standards.
For example she just couldn't "delegate" that I just pack my own flipping suitcase for a summer camp. It's not as much a matter of "trust" or "trustworthy." It's a matter of "trust" when you suspect that the little evil bastard would, say, smuggle a bottle of booze (or drug or porn or whatever) into the suitcase. It's a matter of "delegating" when you do it because you just know that he, honest and trustworthy as he may be, wouldn't pack the _right_ sweater or exactly the right amount of clean socks.
Have you seen a suitcase packed by an OCPD case? It has to contain the _perfect_ mix that covers any possible situation, including two weeks worth of snowstorm in July. It also weighs half a ton. (Or it seems that way when you have to drag it around as a kid.)
Ironically enough, she was probably right there, in a sick and twisted way. Since I had never been allowed to do it, I would have probably botched it. It's a bit of a vicious circle, you know?
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
BAH need to proofread more
s/2nd the court isn't falliable/2nd the court is fallaible
If you cannot keep politics out of your moderation remove yourself from the Mod Lottery.. NOW!
Check it out: linky
Nice!!!
This kid could make millions, but no one is going to want to be his friend.
Every time someone gets busted for speeding he gets a wedgie.
Good thinking.
ender-iii
Parents are financially responsible for the screw ups of their kid. If their kid is not responsible the parent will get their ass sued off. I'm not saying that this is the right solution, but since a parent is financially responsible for when their kids screw up they should have resources available to know what their kid is up to.
We know how lawyers are, imagine this scenerio, "Your kid caused a major accident because of speeding. How come you did not use this device to control his driving habits?" as the parent gets nailed for punative damages.
This device sucks, but until kids start acting reasonable, parents need to account for what they are doing.
Let the flames about how I am a ideal kid begin.
Spelling and grammar mistakes specifically left in to give the grammar and spelling nazis a meaning to their life.
Next time someone gives you the: "If you're not guilty, you should have nothing to hide"
argument in response to criticism about government spying, show them this little gadget. Then, tell them that they must therefore be willing to have one installed on their car and empower local or state police to constantly monitor the signal. Using GPS and data about speed limits on certain roads, police computers will automatically send out speeding tickets to the person whose name is on the registration whenever the sensor detects the speed of the vehicle exceeding the posted limit. We could probably balance the budgets of all 50 states in no time! Of course this mandate will only apply to the idiots who publicly espouse that viewpoint. Call it the "Big Brother" tax.
Actually, this device could protect you from unethical cops who lie about how fast you were going so they can meet their ticket quota.
The pursuit of absolute tolerance leads to the most rigorous and ludicrous intolerance. - REX MURPHY
oh god I hope they don't start using these devices to charge us more for improper use of their vehicles. What next? odor sensors to see when I am peeling out? I bought their damn insurance, that gives me the right to take their chevy malibu offroading in a corn field and e-braking it into trash cans setup like bowling pins!
I'm tired of hearing regurgitated bullshit like this. What does Ritalin have to do with education?
Nigga, please!!
I recently got a new Cougar, and took my mom out driving.
I'm doing 60 in a 35 zone, when she politely suggests I buy a radar detector. I think she's earned her "World's best mom" coffee mug.
I think this kid's parents must be the insurance industry. That's who'll want to use this device.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Sounds kinda like an article I read on /. about a year ago saying that Canada's going to test out a new system similar to this, but it will actually impair your ability to push down on the accelerator once you reach a certain speed.
This tech has been around for a while; is currently being sold by an Australian company, and is being tested out in central B.C. Canada. Apologies for not having the exact details.
Its also been used by rental car companies to track speeding (pretty much the exact application described in the summary, with "parents" replaced by "owners" and "teens" replaced by "renters"), although I seem to remember at least one legal decision striking down the use as illegal.
At any rate, you are correct, this is a decidely non-novel "invention" that is already in use; I wouldn't be surprised if something either like this or transponder-based wasn't in the next couple decades required for all cars by the government just as license plates are, and used not only to monitor speeding, but also to assess road tolls, and for more intrusive law enforcement purposes.
I really cannot see what is so newsworthy about this. GPS based governor devices are an old idea, and more simple systems have been available for many years. In fact, it seems like a GPS wouldn't be the best system to use for this since the car already has a device in place to measure its speed. Also, if the GPS is calculating speed based on an observed change in position over a known time, it may not be able to really capture the true speed of the car. I could see switchback and country roads being especially rough on this kind of system due to the constantly changing direction.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 is the magic number.
The government does not put food in my mouth or a roof over my head - last I checked, I pay them for "service". This is not "Big Brother", this is giving parents the tools they need to do supervision - It's oranges to the "Big Brother" topic being apples.
Wrap it in a few layers of tin foil... Volia! No GPS gets in... And since it's only reporting on speeding incidents, if the P's don't see anything in there, they assume all is well...
If you don't trust your child to drive safely, WHY ARE YOU LETTING THEM DRIVE ALONE? Don't take this the wrong way, but I don't care if your kid careens off of a cliff and dies in a ball of fire. That however is FAR less likely than them careening into ME, and I do care about me. You know your kids best. If they shouldn't be driving (alone) PLEASE DONT LET THEM.
Remember, you're putting MY life in their hands.
People who think they know everything really piss off those of us that actually do.
It's a little extreme, but I'm an extreme guy.. No, wait. That's your sig. A blatant lie might I add, if your website is anything to go by. The parent poster - you stuffy, pompous /. retard - would have to spend way too much time here to notice this particular indiscretion. In my opinion, that is a far worse crime.
Thank-you for your apostrophe pedantry. It adds to your quiet dignity. You made the point succinctly IMO.
Did you actually read your study? If you did, I think you should sharpen those reading comprihension skills.
Let's take a look, shall we?
1) This study was done on NON-LIMITED ACCESS ROADS. That means it was not done on the interstate highway system. Considering this thread was about the interstates, this isn't an apples to apples comparison. To wit: "The objectives of this research was to determine the effects of raising and lowering posted speed limits on driver behavior and accidents for non-limited access rural and urban highways." and also "the major emphasis of this research is on streets and highways that were posted between 20 and 55 mi/h"
2) This study concludes that lowering the speed limit increases accidents. Consider that for a moment. Law abiding citizens adjusted their speed to the new, lower speed limit. However the majority of (law breaking) citizens did not decrease their speed, causing a larged disparity between the fastest and slowest drivers on a given road. Once again, you're blaming the citizens that follow the speed limit for this when you should be blaming the citizens that were breaking the law.
3) No allowance given to habit. If I lived near a testing site and I always drove 65 down the 55mph road I'm not likely to change my speed when the study starts. First, I might not be aware of the speed change for some time after the beginning of the study. Second, it's my observation that most of us drive by "feel." That is, I'm not likely to monitor my speedometer while driving unless prompted by a slow or fast moving vehicle or law enforcement. This prevents the study from illustrating what would happen over a long period of time, say 20 years, during which the people driving on the road daily "cycles" due to death, relocation, reaching legal driving age, etc.
4) Upper Bounds of Speed Increases. As stated, the emphasis of this study is on roads with limits between 20 and 55mph. The maximum increases tested by the study are were +15mph. I couldn't find any specific information on site increases, but it's my guess that they didn't turn many non-divided country roads into 70MpH raceways. It seems to me most likely that the 15mph increases were reserved for the routes with slower speeds at the beginning of the study. Even if I am incorrect, this study is not applicable to the interstate system, the majority of which already operates at 65Mph or higher. There is a difference between a max posted speed of 65 (55Mph originally plus 10MpH adjustment) and a max speed of 80 (65mph plus a 15mph adjustment)
Incidentally, there are a number of factual and typographical errors in the report that piqued my interest. An example:
"Vehicles with a length less than 20 ft (5.1 m) were classified as short vehicles. Vehicles greater than 20 ft (6.1 m) in length were classified as short vehicles. "
There are a number of problems with this statement. First, the number of meters in 20 feet change from one sentence to the next. Second, both groups are classified as "short" despite what I deduce as the intention of the sentence.
In conclusion, this study is not very applicable to our discussion. You should probably read these things for their CONTENT and not just for the parts that back up whatever point you're trying to make.
So, there's my proof. Would you like to eat your crow now or should I put it in a doggy-bag?
First, you claim "study after study" but you posted ONE STUDY.
Second, you posted the same link that someone else did. After reading the study, I replied to him with this post, cut and pasted here for your enjoyment:
Did you actually read your study? If you did, I think you should sharpen those reading comprihension skills.
Let's take a look, shall we?
1) This study was done on NON-LIMITED ACCESS ROADS. That means it was not done on the interstate highway system. Considering this thread was about the interstates, this isn't an apples to apples comparison. To wit: "The objectives of this research was to determine the effects of raising and lowering posted speed limits on driver behavior and accidents for non-limited access rural and urban highways." and also "the major emphasis of this research is on streets and highways that were posted between 20 and 55 mi/h"
2) This study concludes that lowering the speed limit increases accidents. Consider that for a moment. Law abiding citizens adjusted their speed to the new, lower speed limit. However the majority of (law breaking) citizens did not decrease their speed, causing a larged disparity between the fastest and slowest drivers on a given road. Once again, you're blaming the citizens that follow the speed limit for this when you should be blaming the citizens that were breaking the law.
3) No allowance given to habit. If I lived near a testing site and I always drove 65 down the 55mph road I'm not likely to change my speed when the study starts. First, I might not be aware of the speed change for some time after the beginning of the study. Second, it's my observation that most of us drive by "feel." That is, I'm not likely to monitor my speedometer while driving unless prompted by a slow or fast moving vehicle or law enforcement. This prevents the study from illustrating what would happen over a long period of time, say 20 years, during which the people driving on the road daily "cycles" due to death, relocation, reaching legal driving age, etc.
4) Upper Bounds of Speed Increases. As stated, the emphasis of this study is on roads with limits between 20 and 55mph. The maximum increases tested by the study are were +15mph. I couldn't find any specific information on site increases, but it's my guess that they didn't turn many non-divided country roads into 70MpH raceways. It seems to me most likely that the 15mph increases were reserved for the routes with slower speeds at the beginning of the study. Even if I am incorrect, this study is not applicable to the interstate system, the majority of which already operates at 65Mph or higher. There is a difference between a max posted speed of 65 (55Mph originally plus 10MpH adjustment) and a max speed of 80 (65mph plus a 15mph adjustment)
Incidentally, there are a number of factual and typographical errors in the report that piqued my interest. An example:
"Vehicles with a length less than 20 ft (5.1 m) were classified as short vehicles. Vehicles greater than 20 ft (6.1 m) in length were classified as short vehicles. "
There are a number of problems with this statement. First, the number of meters in 20 feet change from one sentence to the next. Second, both groups are classified as "short" despite what I deduce as the intention of the sentence.
In conclusion, this study is not very applicable to our discussion. You should probably read these things for their CONTENT and not just for the parts that back up whatever point you're trying to make.
So, there's my proof. Would you like to eat your crow now or should I put it in a doggy-bag?
The horse is dead. will you stop beating it.
To help get him out of the dumpster he will now find himself thrown into everyday at school?
You had no problem barking at someone who disagreed, and you do the same to me. Have you ever thought that if you piss your child off enough that he wants nothing to do with his parents...that perhaps that is not in his best interest? It'll give him relationship issues for the rest of his life, and the 'lessons' you taught him might produce the opposite result.
I don't understand how you can say you won't forbid things unless their is a logical reason, and then go on to imply your household is not 'godless'. That's pure humor right there!
Blar.
First, you claim "study after study" but you posted ONE STUDY.
Yeah, sorry I didn't provide a mountain of research there. Google "85th percentile" and see for yourself. The study I posted was authoritative enough.
1) This study was done on NON-LIMITED ACCESS ROADS. That means it was not done on the interstate highway system. Considering this thread was about the interstates, this isn't an apples to apples comparison.
I have no good reason to think that people's driving habits suddenly and radically alter when they get on the freeway, do you? Show me evidence to the contrary and I'll accept it but on the face of it your assertion is ridiculous.
Once again, you're blaming the citizens that follow the speed limit for this when you should be blaming the citizens that were breaking the law.
No, I'm blaming the speed limit for being in place when it is a known fact it will be ignored. There is no point whatsoever in creating a law you know will be ignored, and then getting upset when people ignore it. The goody two-shoes who actually follow the speed limit are technically following the letter of the law, but not the spirit, and are consequently more of a burden to society than the ones who are "breaking" the law by going at a reasonable speed.
Second, it's my observation that most of us drive by "feel." That is, I'm not likely to monitor my speedometer while driving unless prompted by a slow or fast moving vehicle or law enforcement.
So you admit that you basically ignore posted speed limits and just drive however fast feels right.
Which is exactly what the study showed -- people ignore posted speed limits and drive however fast feels right.
Now you want to lash them at the stake for doing this because they're demons on wheels.
Not uncoincidentally, the state, well aware of this fact, promptly posts limits well below what the average "feels right" speed is, so they can nail people for speeding and collect more money, which is what the study was all about, as well as this discussion -- wherein you assert that the speed limit is some kind of binding, always-correct mandate handed down from Mount Sinai. It's not. It's a silly number posted by greedy assholes who can make you pay money for ignoring it because they have more guns than you do. So, are you quite done making an ass of yourself?
mirrorshades radio -- darkwave, industrial, futurepop, ebm.