Rocky Mountain Tracking

Daily GPS News

Parenting Today Needs All the Help it Can Get

July 1st, 2010

Does anyone doubt the difficulty that parenting in today’s culture imposes? There are the cell phones – no smartphones, video game consoles, the Internet and other hand-held, portable and all-consuming attention grabbers that vie for a place in kid’s lives.

Family Safety & GPS Tracking

With these devices come dangers from exposing young and innocent lives to very bad people and situations under the disguise of connected acquaintances. Is it any wonder then that parents need all of the help they can muster?

Sources of Help

Parents need to be as aware of technology as are their children. This means that studying about the latest trends and arming themselves with information on how to protect kids from the bad that is out there is mandatory. Here are the minimum requirements that Mom and Dad should look into to protect their families.

Internet monitoring software.

If you are away from your home while kids are at home, they are probably on the Internet. It’s a matter of time before they come across some very bad things there. Monitoring software can record and log keystrokes on your PC. Go here for a review of some of the best offerings.

Ratings on Video Games.

These have been out for a very long time and can help you determine if a game is appropriate for your child, but they are very general. You also might find that a rating might not be helpful if you have different values from those that rate and recommend games to certain age groups. The bottom line: look the game over closely and look for reviews online to give you additional insights.

Security Options on Smartphones.

This is one to watch because the dawn of smartphones will bring with it new security risks. Smartphones will become like their predecessors of old, the PC, and will have to have security software installed to prevent attacks and the phishing and stealing of information. There are concerns that you should know about now that will help you be aware of the dangers.

GPS Tracking Devices.

Outfitting your family with these devices is a decision that needs to be made in determining how safe you need to feel. Adding GPS Tracking units to your vehicles has other benefits, too. Tracking for location, speed, and direction of travel can help monitor anyone who drives the car. Small, unobtrusive tracking devices can be used to keep track of where family members go.

Technology can help Mom and Dad in their parenting duties. GPS Tracking helps a busy family stay safe. It’s one of the best parenting tools today!

Student Driving Courses Starting Up

April 27th, 2009

By James Neely

As warmer weather rolls into the upper states in the U.S., driver training cars begin to take to the roads in greater numbers. This means young drivers will be on the roads very soon and with them comes the concerns about safety. This is especially true because of the many distractions to young minds when they are driving.

Student Driver

The sad truth is that some teens are turned out onto the roads before they are fully ready for the responsibility. But even of higher concern is the lack of oversight in monitoring of compliance to rules and regulations by these young drivers. The responsibility for this lies with the parents. But they cannot be with the drivers at all times so the risk is very real and too often produces tragic results.

That is why a family with young drivers should consider placing a GPS Tracking system into the vehicles that will be driven by teen drivers. The ability to constantly track a vehicle by speed, direction and location sends a message that adherence to laws and rules is not optional.

You also get the added benefit of being able to verify speeds at which the vehicle has been driven which gives insight into how safe of a driver is at the wheel. This is great because local police are not able to be everywhere to make sure laws are not being broken.

Being able to ‘look over the shoulder’ in order to increase accountability is a good thing. We all have stories of times in our past when things were done with vehicles that are scary when thinking about what possible outcomes could have brought. Having a GPS Tracking system is like having an adult watching at all times.

Since you are not going to be able to be where your child is at all times in order to check on their driving habits, it only makes sense to obtain one of these units and use it to your advantage. Whether or not you tell your teen of its existence is a discussion left for parents to grapple over.

A GPS vehicle tracking system provides an affordable solution for safety and information to help keep teen drivers aware of their responsibilities with 4,000 pound vehicles. Everyone needs a little help and with these units you will get that help. Install them, use them, keep your children safe and honest. It is the best you can do.

Locating People With GPS Tracking

April 20th, 2009

By Greg Bartlett

Today’s society is highly mobile. Many families have two or more vehicles either in the garage or driveway. The asset of having a vehicle available, combined with the interstate highway system allows a person to be hundreds of miles away from their home in a relatively short period of time. Once a person has left home, how can family members ensure that they know the location of that person with any degree of certainty? Locating people with GPS tracking ensures that the person’s location is always available.

network-people-company The reasons for wanting to know a person’s location vary from family to family. A spouse may suspect their partner of infidelity or doing something that they shouldn’t; a teenage driver may not stay within their defined limits for driving. An elderly parent may wander away from home and not remember how to return to the home’s safe confines. A child may also wander away or be taken by an adult. In all of these cases there is a GPS tracking solution to locate these people.

If a spouse or partner is suspected of infidelity or doing something that they shouldn’t, buying drugs for example, a GPS tracking device can be covertly installed in their vehicle. This will allow the suspicious spouse to track where their partner is going, and potentially what they are doing. Once the wandering spouse establishes a pattern, the suspicious spouse can intercept them at their destination.

Teenage drivers are often persuaded by peer pressure to exceed the limits that were agreed to with their parents. These limits can be excessive speed, dangerous driving habits or violation of specific geographic limits. GPS systems can be programmed by the parent to inform them when these violations occur. This information can be transmitted as a text message or an e-mail to the parent in real time. The parent may have the option to remotely disable the vehicle when these violations occur.

Children and elderly adults can be provided with small personal GPS transmitters that provide their location whenever they are away from the house. There are systems available that have portable hand held receivers, which can be utilized, to track down their location on foot. If a child wanders away in a park, the adult can easily locate the child utilizing the hand held receiver. Often, the child is simply watching ducks on the pond, playing with other children or on a playground apparatus in a different part of the park. The ability to know where the child is provides the parent an assurance that they can always find the child.

Locating people with GPS car tracking technology has never been easier. This ability provides the assurance that loved ones can always be located. Locating people with GPS tracking can keep those being tracked both out of trouble and safe from harm. To get answers about your tracking needs, call Rocky Mountain Tracking, Inc toll-free at 1-888-242-0500.

Car Tracking Devices and Health

April 19th, 2009

By Greg Bartlett

Your loved one may suffer from dementia, tuberculosis, Alzheimer’s, or any one of a number of health issues. You aren’t just worried about your loved one’s health and physical well being, but about their location. If your loved one wanders off and gets lost, how will anyone be able to help if a need arises?

Freedom to Drive

More and more, doctors are recommending GPS car tracking devices for some of their patients. For instance, tuberculosis can be highly infectious, but rather than keep the patient locked up away from everyone else, a GPS device can be used to monitor the patient’s location and ensure that no one else is in danger of being infected. One individual with tuberculosis was almost put in prison because of the health danger he posed to the community, but instead a GPS system can provided a better alternative. The individual lived at home while health professionals monitored him and his activities.

Doctors are also beginning to use GPS tracking devices with dementia and Alzheimer’s patients. At least a third of individuals with dementia or Alzheimer’s regularly get lost, and around twenty-five percent of patients are sometimes locked out of their houses by family members who don’t know realize that the patient is outside of the house. For instance, one elderly patient in Florida with Alzheimer’s recently wandered off, but was quickly located by family members through a GPS system before he had gone very far.

Patients can also be kept out of nursing homes or hospitals since the family members feel more capable of safely and effectively caring for the patients. They no longer have to feel the stress of not knowing if their loved ones are safe since all they have to do is check with the GPS system to discover where their loved ones are.

GPS tracking devices allow and family members and health professionals to be notified by a phone call or text message if patients go outside a specified area, such as their regular daily track. Family members and health professionals can monitor the individuals and their locations through GPS systems, thus protecting patients from getting lost and separated from the help they need.

You no longer need to spend nights worrying about the safety of your loved ones. With GPS tracking devices, your family members with health issues can live independent lives while still at home and can have the freedom to go where they want while still being safely monitored.

It is Spring Break – Do You Know Where Your Teens Are Located?

April 9th, 2009

By James Neely

Spring Break

One of the most frightful times in a parent’s life is when they (against their better judgment) allow their college-aged sons or daughters to borrow the family car and take a road trip to a distant location for spring break. There is a general overall concern for their safety and well-being but also a worry about safety on the road.

That is why a GPS Tracking system for your vehicle makes sense. You are able to bring up real-time data concerning the location and other details of how your car is being driven.

Here are some other considerations in having one installed:

Safe Driver Here. A GPS Tracking system helps your young driver to become more responsible by providing a constant monitor on the vehicle at all times. They know instinctively that the system is there to help them and most drivers of this age group are in agreement that the inclusion of a system is a good idea.

Data that can be obtained through the use of this system includes speed monitoring, seat belt usage, passenger information, etc. Your young driver knows that these are all there to help them. Also, should there be an encounter with police; verification can be made if there were a moving violation that was incurred on the part of the driver.

Insurance Discounts. You may be eligible for significant insurance discounts with a GPS vehicle tracking system. Because these units have already proven that they can lower the rate of incidents of accidents and other events, these are welcomed by insurance companies and policy holders are rewarded for their efforts in having one installed. The money spent on an installation will be made up for in premium savings over a relatively short period of time.

Face it; the early years of driving for a child are critical to their development as a responsible member of society. How many incidents have occurred in your area in which the comments were made that “if only things had been different.” Well, now they can be different – at least in the area of driving.

Think about all of the people in your community who would approve of the use of such a unit: police and rescue personnel, teachers, judges, and parish leaders alike. There are no negatives to a GPS car locator and its usage. The only negative is the time left until you have one installed. Do it today by calling Rocky Mountain Tracking at 888-242-0500.

Keeping Tabs on Your Child with GPS Phone Tracking

March 21st, 2009

By Harriette Halepis

Track a cell phone online Hundreds of children run away from their homes every year. Most of the time, parents never see these children again. Even though numerous video camera tapes are sent to police with the hopes that a runaway child might appear, these tapes often lead to a mere wild goose chase. By the time police and parents can identify a child on a video tape, that child is usually long gone. So many parents spend years following video tapes, though these tapes hardly ever lead to the missing child.

What if there was a way around losing track of a runaway? What if police could find runaways right away? Well, all of this is possible with a real time GPS cell phone tracking system. Now, you may be thinking that any runaway would simply remove a GPS tracker from its hiding spot right away, and you might be right – if the child knows about the device, that is. Concerned parents across the globe have found out that being a bit secretive with their child might mean preventing runaways. How?

Many GPS trackers are incredibly small. These small trackers can be sewed into clothing, backpacks, or everyday jackets – they can even be placed on bicycles. Since many of these trackers are also weather-proof, they will work no matter where you child may roam. The best thing about a GPS tracker is that it monitors movement in real-time. While video surveillance can only capture delayed images, a GPS tracker will tell you where your child is at any precise moment. If your child is carrying a GPS tracker, police will be able to find them right away. Do parents really have to be this proactive? Even if you think your child would never run away from home, you might be surprised to learn that most parents never think their child will run.

Children run away from home for numerous reasons. They may be facing tough times at school, they may not enjoy family life, or they may have had something miniscule (such as a bad mark) happen to them. Within the mind of a child, these are all valid reasons for escaping reality by running away. Aside from the obvious, the problem with this childish plan is that most children have no idea where they are running to.

NavIQ Mobile Many of them wind up on city streets alone, embarrassed, and out of money. This often leads to drug abuse, abuse, and sometimes even death. This sad scenario can be prevented with the help of a cell phone GPS locator. For simple peace of mind, consider adding a tracker to your child’s clothing or backpack – when it comes to missing children, there’s nothing more important than real-time movement tracking.

Protection or Smothering: GPS Tracking and Your Children

March 10th, 2009

By Greg Bartlett

The recent years have seen a rise in the popularity of GPS tracking to protect assets like cars and electronics. As the market plateaus, however, companies offering these services have begun to market to parents concerned with child abduction.

GPS tracking works through the device communicating with satellites. Three satellites are used to triangulate the approximate location of an item or in this case a child. The technology is very accurate and in the event of a missing child could allow emergency personnel to quickly find and return the child home. There are shortcomings, however. To be effective, the tracker needs to have “line of sight” to the three satellites, thus if they are taken into a home with a metal roof, or underground parking structure the device may not function as effectively.

Child Protection The size of GPS tracking devices allow for them to be sewn into a pocket of your child’s backpack, that way in the nightmare scenario that your child becomes lost or is abducted you will be able to quickly track them down. The question is does placing a tracking device on your child protect them or smother them?

This comes back to the old debate, “If it would rid the world of terrorism, would you give up your civil rights for a day? For two?” The protection of our children is the primary concern of parents the world over, but where does it end. GPS tracking definitely makes sense for very young children. But what will be the magic age when parents will inform their children that their every move has been monitored? Is there not a danger that it won’t end? Should the concern shift from protecting the child from strangers in their youth to protecting them from themselves in their teen years?

Another factor to be considered is where this technology could lead in the future. After all, since everyone wants to protect their children could it not become standard for a GPS microchip to be implanted at birth? What was once the realm of science fiction is now closing in on reality. If this happens, will children know about their chips? When will they be allowed to remove them? What data will be collected and who will have access to it?

Perhaps, this is paranoid, but these questions need to be asked. Can parents increase the safety of their children with GPS tracking? Yes, of course. But the costs of such action must also be considered. Children need to be given room to grow and make decisions for themselves, both good and bad.

A New Twist on GPS Tracking Teen Drivers

March 5th, 2009

By Greg Bartlett

The benefits of having GPS vehicle tracking devices installed have been outlined many times. These vehicle tracking devices allow the owners of vehicles to locate their car, even if it is stolen, and call the authorities in time to make a safe recovery of the vehicle and usually arrest the thief. Businesses are using the technology to track their vehicle fleets and are finding many money saving benefits because of their implementation of the GPS tracking system. Parents are able to track the movements of their inexperienced teen drivers and maintain some sort of control over the vehicle even while at home.

You have probably also heard about the fact that many courts are admitting GPS tracking logs and reports as evidence in trials where the GPS data proves the persons guilt, or at least helps to prove it. In a landmark case in California, parents are going to court with their son to fight a speeding ticket. According to the ticket, he was clocked at 62 mph in a 45 mph zone. The tracking device in the vehicle he was driving was set to transmit an alarm if his speed exceeded a certain amount. That alarm never came, and the data from the GPS log indicates that the boy was driving the speed limit at the time the officer says he clocked him on radar.

If the judge in the case allows the GPS log to be admitted as evidence of the boy’s innocence, and dismisses the case, this will prove to be a pivotal point in the history of using GPS technology to track vehicle movements. If this one case goes in favor of the boy, the court will have provided professional drivers, whose vehicles are often equipped with GPS tracking devices, with a powerful tool to use to fight tickets they feel are unjustly issued. When the ticket says speeding and the GPS log says otherwise, someone is going to be wrong. With so many cases already decided with GPS evidence entered for the prosecution, it is going to be difficult to rule that the data is not accurate in this case.

Many parents have GPS vehicle tracking installed in the vehicles they allow their teens to drive. This allows the parents to know if their children are speeding or driving in areas they are supposed to avoid. The goal is for parents to still protect their kids as much as possible. In this new twist, parents may very well be protecting their son from an unjust speeding ticket by using the data from their GPS tracking device.

GPS Tracking Systems Help Protect People with Mental Deficiencies

March 4th, 2009

By Greg Bartlett

Many people, who are somewhat less than mentally competent, live in our cities and have freedom to roam at will. Autism affects many children in this country who do not relate to the outside world in the same way that most people do. These individuals tend to live in their own world and only react to the real world on a very limited scale that involves doing things in the same way every day with little or no variation. If their routine is thrown off, these individuals can become completely lost within just a few blocks of their home.

Alzheimer’s is another disease that affects many elderly people. This disease causes the individual afflicted to live in the past. This results in the individual not knowing where they are even if they are in their own home. The further along Alzheimer’s progresses the more disoriented the individual becomes in their surroundings. Because of the nature of Alzheimer’s disease, the majority of Alzheimer’s patients are put into a nursing home or other facility where the staff is more equipped to handle them. Despite this Alzheimer’s patients still often get lost close to their residences.

For the parents, children, or unrelated caregivers of these mentally deficient individuals, there is now a technology that is proven to be helpful in locating lost individuals quickly and efficiently so that someone can recover them and get back to their home unharmed. GPS tracking can be used with a bracelet or similar jewelry item that is worn by the individual and sends out a signal that can be picked up and read by a computer with an internet connection so that the whereabouts of the person can be ascertained quickly when it is noticed that they are missing.

This particular use of GPS tracking systems has saved the lives of many Alzheimer’s patients who have wandered away from nursing homes and skill nursing facilities. These are often located in a semi rural area where the patient can become lost within a quarter mile of the facility and not be able to find his/her way back, even if he/she realizes he/she is lost. In the past, many patients have been searched for in a manhunt that lasted for several days before being found, dead from exposure, usually less than a mile from where they went missing from. The same technology can be applied to Autistic individuals and others with an altered mental capacity. For more information about GPS technology call Rocky Mountain Tracking, Inc. at 1-888-242-0500.

Benefits of GPS Vehicle Tracking Systems

February 26th, 2009

By Greg Bartlett

Satellite Tracking Image Since the 1990s when GPS tracking technology first became available to the general public, people have found more ways that GPS tracking can be used every year. One of the most common uses of GPS technology is to incorporate it into GPS vehicle tracking systems. There are several different benefits of such systems.

1. GPS vehicle tracking systems provide an accurate location and speed check on vehicles being driven by employees of a company. These can also be used to track the amount of time employees spend at one location in the event that a customer complains that he is being billed for more time than was actually spent on the job.

These systems are also very useful to company dispatchers who can locate each mobile unit and route the nearest one to any calls that come in, whether for service calls or pick up of packages.

2. A second use of GPS vehicle tracking systems is providing an accurate location of the vehicle to police in the event of car theft. The signal from such systems can be received by any police cruiser with an internet connected computer on board, which is almost all these days. Police can follow the movements of the vehicle and arrest the thief in short order, often catching others at the same time if this is a professional chop shop operation. Recovery of the vehicle in an unharmed state occurs far more frequently when GPS vehicle recovery systems are involved.

3. GPS vehicle tracking systems are also very useful for parents of inexperienced teen drivers. These systems allow the parents to monitor the movements and whereabouts of their teens when away from home in the family car. They have proven useful in reducing accidents and moving violations because the parents can track speed data and call the teen with instructions to slow down before the police get involved or an accident occurs.

4. Finally, GPS vehicle tracking systems make it possible for a spouse who suspects that his/her mate is cheating to follow the movements of the vehicle and catch them in the act if the suspicions are founded. Spouses who prefer not to make a direct confrontation can provide information on the signal from the GPS device to a private investigator who can obtain any evidence of infidelity and turn it over for use in a divorce proceeding.

GPS vehicle tracking systems have proven very useful for a variety of commercial and personal applications when knowledge of where a vehicle is and how fast it is moving is necessary.