More on the TV News Teen Tracking Experiment

July 16th, 2008

Earlier this week, I wrote about how parents in Alabama, along with a local tv news station, got together to get a little information on one teen’s driving habits.

The teenager in question was not told beforehand that his driving habits were going to be monitored using a GPS tracking device. And, as you can imagine, he was not happy when he found out what had happened.

The teen denied going at a rate of 95 miles per hour, as the tracking device indicated. He also did not want to give his parents any information on where he had been one Friday night. The GPS tracking device not only recorded his speed, it also kept track of where he went. One of his stops was at a location that was unknown to his parents.

The tv news station paid for the tacking device and presumably aired footage about this experiment. They had a therapist on hand to provide commentary. The therapist pointed out that parents can expect backlash if they track teen drivers and do not tell them

You may or may not agree with what these parents did. They themselves wondered if they did the right thing in tracking their son’s driving habits without telling him and while cooperating with the media.

However, if you have teen drivers in your house, you may still want to consider installing a tracking device on the vehicles they drive so that you can be aware of how they are driving and where they are going. Unlike the parents in case, you may elect to tell your teen that they are being tracked so that they will be aware and hopefully engage in good driving habits so you need not intervene.

Visit the Rocky Mountain Tracking website the check out teen tracking devices.

TV News Teen Tracking Experiment

July 14th, 2008

Remember the old show “Candid Camera?” A person would be set up to walk into an unusual situation and be recorded without being aware. At some point, someone would pop out and tell them to smile because they were one “Candid Camera.”

One Alabama teenager was not smiling after he found out that his parents had teamed up with a local tv news station to track his driving habits using a GPS tracking device. The tv station paid for the tracking device and the young man’s parents agreed to put it on his truck without telling him. The parents were fairly confident that their son was following the rules of the road. At the same time they said that they were not the kind of parents who would say “my child would never do this or that.”

When they saw the information recorded from the GPS tracking device they learned that they were right not to assume they knew everything about their son’s driving habits.

While he did not have an exhibit continuously reckless driving habits there were a couple of red flags. According to information from the tracking device, he drove at 95 miles an hour once. He also stopped at a location that was unrecognizable to his parents.

Certainly, everyone will not be able to work with a tv news station to get a tracking device. Rocky Mountain Tracking (RMT) has GPS tracking devices available that you can use if you are concerned about your teenager’s driving habits. They are affordable and easy to use. RMT provides comprehensive customer support for its teen tracking devices and all of its other products.

The RMT Rover Teen Tracker

April 5th, 2008

We’ve already told you about how Rocky Mountain Tracking was named as TeenDriverInsurance.com’s preferred vendor, now let us tell you about a product that you can use if your goal is to monitor a young driver.

RM Tracking has a variety of top quality GPS tracking products for you to choose from, but the one designed specifically for keeping up with adolescent drivers is the RMT Rover Teen Tracker. The RMT Rover Teen Tracker allows parents to keep track of how fast their teen is driving, if their teen is using a seat belt and it will give you information on where they have driven, in real time. The RMT Rover Teen Tracker works very well with RM Tracking’s NavIQ software.

You might also choose to try the RMT Tracking Key. This is a passive system, meaning you won’t be able to get information on the car’s location in real time. Instead, the RMT Tracking Key records information while your teen is driving and then you can download the data to review it afterwards.

Whether you choose to monitor your teen in real time or decide to review their driving habits later, GPS teen tracking devices are a great ally. They can help you indentify bad driving habits that can lead to higher insurance premiums and accidents. You want to believe that your teenager will always do their best to drive safely, but you know that even the best kids get a little reckless when Mom and Dad aren’t around. You don’t want to insist on riding with them everywhere they go—this is the next best thing to being there.

RMT Recognized for Helping Teen Drivers

April 2nd, 2008

Last week we talked about some good reasons why parents would want to make use of GPS tracking devices to monitor their teen drivers. And this week we have some great news: Rocky Mountain Tracking has been recognized because its great GPS tracking solutions keep teens safe when they are behind the wheel.

Rocky Mountain Tracking was named as a Preferred Vendor for TeenDriverInsurance.com. This Web site not only helps parents find insurance agents in their area who work with families to protect teenage drivers. Parents who install safety devices like GPS trackers can get reduced insurance rates. This is very beneficial since insurance rates tend to go up when the kids hit the teen years.

Because Rocky Mountain Tracking is so pleased about this recognition, it is offering discounts on tracking products to parents who use TeenDriverInsurance.com.

Automobile accidents are the leading cause of death among teens, so the danger is very real. Even the most responsible, well-behaved teenagers are not immune to some sort of reckless behavior while driving. The teenage brain is a beautiful thing, but it is not fully matured. Even if they wanted to make only the best decisions, teenagers are not always capable because they have not finished growing up. Young people tend to see themselves as invincible. When they are on the road, they don’t always remember that they do not have years of driving experience and this can lead them to take chances they shouldn’t.

Rocky Mountain Tracking wants to partner with parents to provide teen tracking products that allow teen drivers to get driving experience, while giving them the safety net they need.

GPS Tracking Keeps Teens Out Of Harm’s Way

March 28th, 2008

The Wall Street Journal asked a psychologist who practices with a focus on parenting and relationships for her thoughts on tracking teens with GPS tracking systems. This expert said that teenagers need to earn their parents’ trust and this takes time. This expert did suggest that parents tell teens that their driving is being monitored, but surprisingly, she did not insist that parents tell teen drivers exactly how they are being monitored. For example if you tell your child that you will be installing a device to monitor them, they don’t have to know if it is for speed, seatbelt use or destination. If they break some of the driving guidelines you’ve set and you talk to them about it, they will then be aware of what is being monitored.

So if you are a parent who is thinking about buying a GPS teen tracking device to keep an eye on your teen, know that you are not being overly anxious or controlling.

As a parent, you know your child, so you have an idea of how responsible and trustworthy they are or are not. Still, no parent can really know what their child will do when they are not subject to parental guidance.

By the way, the woman and her daughter quoted in the article mentioned earlier are a prime example of just why teens need monitoring: this woman admonished her daughter to wear her seatbelt after a monitoring device informed her that her teen was not wearing a seatbelt. The daughter started to comply and got into an accident soon after. Her car flipped over, but she walked away unharmed because of her seatbelt.

Parents Can Use GPS to Track Teen Drivers

January 23rd, 2008

Disputes between teen drivers and their parents have been popping up all over the news recently. Did you hear about the woman who placed a classified ad to sell the car she’d given her son after she found alcohol under one of the seats?

Of course her son was not pleased, but the woman’s actions were applauded by people all over the country. There is a reason that teens are given some freedoms, but are not totally free from parental control—they simply are not ready to have free reign.

One example of this is the growing number of parents who are using GPS (global positioning system) technology to track the whereabouts of teen drivers. The teen is licensed and allowed to drive, but he or she is not given the freedom to just take the car and go without parents having a clue about their location. Some systems update parents as often as every ten seconds.

While teens feel that their freedom is being curbed or that their parents want to spy on them, they don’t see the dangers of driving while young. And why would they? Many teens are capable and responsible, so why the surveillance?

According to research from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, traffic crashes kill more teens than anything else. The GPS technology includes mechanisms to monitor speed, so not only can parents be updated on their child’s location, they can also get information on how fast they are driving. This is not a cure-all for preventing accidents, but some parental intervention may go a long way towards getting some teen drivers to slow down.

Just as the mom who sold her teenage son’s car was applauded, insurance companies are started to reward parents who make use of GPS technology to keep track of younger drivers. Some insurers offer discounts to parents who choose to keep track of their teen’s driving habits.

Come back tomorrow to learn how one family found that this worked to their benefit in more ways than one.

Rocky Mountain Tracking

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