Rocky Mountain Tracking

By Greg Bartlett

You had a lot of trouble sleeping last night, so you decided to get up and do a little work on your computer. However, once you got up, you noticed that the garage light was on, and sure enough, your teenage son Josh’s car is missing. You had your misgivings about getting him his own car in the first place, and this is the third time you’ve found out that he’s disappeared during the night and won’t tell you where he’s gone. You don’t know what he’s doing anymore, and you’re worried. It seems like the only way to really know what is going on is to take away his car.

What you don't know can hurt everyone!

But this morning you came up with another solution to your problem. While Josh was asleep, you installed GPS vehicle tracking in your son’s car. Now you can keep track of Josh while still giving him the independence he wants. The GPS tracking device will give you the answers to your questions by telling you where Josh is and what he’s doing.

For instance, it will let you know when he reaches school or work, sending you automatic updates. If you want to double-check during the day to find out if he’s still at school or if he skipped classes again, a quick look on the computer will answer your questions. The GPS vehicle tracking device will also let you know what stops Josh makes, how long he stops, and even what his driving speed is. Now you can know whether Josh came straight home from work or if he started frequenting the gang-ridden areas on the other side of town. GPS vehicle tracking can even send you alerts if Josh engages in dangerous driving activities, such as speeding.

You can also set up geo-fences, or predetermined areas where Josh is and is not allowed. If he crosses the invisible line, you’ll be alerted at once. Since you can also set allowed time frames, you won’t have to worry about waking up in the night and finding Josh gone again. You’d be alerted the moment he starts to drive off during restricted hours.

GPS vehicle tracking may not do much to change Josh’s behavior itself, but it can help you monitor his activities and ensure that he is safe. And instead of sitting at the counter late at night, wondering where he is, you’ll already have the answers to your questions.

By Greg Bartlett

Last night your 16-year-old daughter said she’d be working all day today until she got out of work, and then she’d head over to her friend’s house to study for her geometry test.  She promised to drive carefully, but you know she’s already gotten a few speeding tickets.  Your 17-year-old son was planning on going to soccer practice and then hanging out with some of his friends to play video games – so he said.  But you know that last week he said he’d be at his friend’s house and instead he was hanging out with a college student who was providing everyone with alcohol. 

As long as your teens are doing what they said they’d be doing and are driving carefully, you don’t have a problem.  But you’re concerned that they’re not really at work, school, soccer practice, or a friend’s house.  Thankfully, there is an easy way to find out with GPS vehicle tracking. 

If you put a GPS device inside your daughter’s car, you’ll be able to determine where the vehicle is and what stops it makes, how long it stops, and how fast it’s going.  You can receive alerts if she starts speeding and can correct her speeding problems before they become fatal to her or someone else.  If she decides to sneak out at night to meet up with her boyfriend, you will be notified that she’s driving during restricted hours.

With GPS vehicle tracking in your son’s car, you can receive alerts when he reaches school, work, or a friend’s house, and can even be notified if he goes into restricted or forbidden areas – such as the college student’s house.  You can follow his driving in real time or look it up later, finding out exactly where and how he has been driving.

GPS vehicle tracking offers you a way to ensure that your teenagers are driving safely and to correct any problems that arise early.  You can also monitor their activities and make sure that they are not taking side trips on the way to or from work and engaging in dangerous activities, whether it is drugs, alcohol, or something else.  

Your son and daughter are close to the age where they have to make their own life’s decisions, but they still need your guidance now, whether they admit it or not.  With GPS vehicle tracking, you can provide them with independence while ensuring their safety by knowing when, where, and how they drive.

By Greg Bartlett

Keeping track of the whereabouts of a teenager has never been an easy task for parents. Today, as more and more teens drive their own cars or have friends who do so, the job has become almost impossible. Parents are often left wondering how to keep in touch with their teens in order to ensure responsible behavior and to keep tabs on safety. Equipping your teen with a GPS tracking device can help you and your teen come to terms with a schedule that satisfies you both.

A GPS tracking device allows you to monitor the activities of your teen by viewing his or her location in real time or by viewing a report that details his activities throughout the day. Some models allow you to view information such as length and duration of stops and speed and direction of travel if he’s driving a car. The GPS transmitter sends a signal to your home computer at specified intervals and is accurate to within a few feet of the actual location. Parents can also take advantage of the option to set a perimeter with the GPS tracking device. If the teen travels outside the specified radius, an email or text message will be sent to the parent’s computer or cell phone.

Both teens and parents can see the benefits of using a GPS tracking device. Teens admit that having the tracking device encourages safer behavior and many view it not as a spy tool, but as an indication that their parents care about their activities. Parents see the devices as a means of strengthening the parent/teen relationship and many use the device as a springboard to discuss responsible driving and personal safety habits. Even schools are beginning to see the value of GPS tracking. One school recently began using the technology to monitor chronic absenteeism. Students who were habitually absent from class were required to carry a GPS tracking device with them, allowing the school to see exactly where they were during each class. School officials then contacted students to let them know their absence had been noted and that they were expected to be in class.

Although some have argued that GPS tracking devices are an invasion of privacy, those who use them insist that this is not the case. Parents and teens alike appreciate the value of opening a channel of communication that might not otherwise be possible and teens appreciate that their parents are taking an interest in them. In a society where teens often slip under the radar, using a GPS tracking device to keep them in the loop of family interest and activity may be the best way to communicate your care and concern for them.

By Greg Bartlett

Keeping track of your teenager can be complicated. Your son has to go to school and work, plus he has football practice and he wants to join a band. Your daughter is involved in school programs and works downtown. Your teens are good kids for the most part, but it’s hard to know where they are at all times.

However, keeping track of your teens is important.

In 2006, over 836,000 people were reported missing. Around 80% of those were under 18 years of age. In 2008, close to 780,000 people were reported missing, and approximately 615,000 of those were under age 18.

Avoiding having your teenagers become one of the statistics may be as simple as giving them a GPS device. A GPS tracking device will let you know where the teen is at all times – provided, of course, the teen keeps it with him or her – and can alert you if your teenager goes out of particular boundaries or stays out past curfew.

You can find out if your teen has just been going to work and school, or if he’s also been sneaking to some friends’ houses where you think they’ve been drinking alcohol.

If the GPS device is in the car, any time the teen drives anywhere you will know about it and the teen can’t remove the device easily. If instead you use a small device that can be carried, say, in a purse, the teenager can accidentally forget about it or deliberately leave it, but it will pinpoint your teen’s location rather than just the car’s location.

That may be especially helpful under certain circumstances, such as if your teen walks to school.

Many GPS devices also allow users to hit a panic button if an emergency arises. If your teen finds herself in a dangerous situation as she leaves work, she can alert you – and police – and can have help sent at once.

A GPS device will let you know where your family members are and can provide peace of mind for you and them. They can know that help will be on the way should an emergency arise, and you can know what they’re doing at all times.

Rather than waiting for your teens to come home, never knowing if they’re lost, hurt, kidnapped, or just out late, with a GPS device you can monitor your family for their safety and to ensure that they don’t become missing persons.

Teen Driver

By Greg Bartlett

Teens do all sorts of things these days, and some of them aren’t activities that parents want to encourage.  For instance, one study shows that 34-39% of 9th graders drank alcohol in the last month, teenage pregnancies are on the rise again, and suicide rates have also increased.  Smoking and substance use and abuse are also among many parents’ concerns.

Keeping your teen safe from the many dangers of some teenage activities can be a daunting task.  How can you find out where your teenager is and what activities he or she is involved in?  Teenagers may be willing to tell their friends what they’re doing, but probably won’t tell their parents, even if what they’re doing is harmless.

So some parents are turning to a different way to find out whether or not their teen is safe.  They track their teenager with a GPS system.

Teenagers may not be any happier about their parents tracking them than they are about telling their parents about their activities, but with the right incentive, teenagers are willing to change their minds.  And the incentive may be a cell phone.  Take a look around at teenagers today.  That’s right, it seems like all of them have a cell phone attached to them somewhere.  And if the phones have options such as unlimited text messaging and web browsing, teens are even more likely to choose to carry the phone even if they know they are being monitored through the GPS system in the phone.

One researcher gave cell phones to teenager girls, trying to track their activities and discover any risky behaviors. The researcher could follow the girls’ movements and ask them about unusual or suspicious behavior.  Using the GPS tracking in the phones, the researcher hopes to discover if the location of the teens pushes them towards risky activities.

Monitoring the activities and the locations of the teenagers with a GPS system will hopefully lead to an understanding of what pressures can cause teenagers to engage in risky behaviors, such as smoking, drinking alcoholic beverages, and using controlled substances.

Many parents are trying to give their teenagers as much freedom as possible, but they have to balance giving that independence with the concern over what their teen is doing.  You can’t physically follow them around to ensure that they’re being careful and making the right choices, but you can monitor their activities and help ensure their safety with a GPS system.

By Harriette Halepis

In an effort to market cell phone products to parents, various large cell phone companies have begun to sell information. Who’s information? It is now possible for parents to obtain current location information regarding their teens from some cell phone companies.

Student Driver

Since most cell phones now track the whereabouts of teens already, it only seems logical that they would attempt to sell this information to anxious parents. For a small fee, parents can contact cell phone companies, and ask to obtain the current location of their teen.

Practical Usage

While some people might find that this selling of information is a blatant violation of privacy, others believe that it is entirely practical. Not only do cell phones now provide location information, but some of them also provide speed information.

By simply placing a cell phone inside of a moving vehicle, cell phone companies can not only tell where your teen is headed, but they can also tell how fast they are moving. This information helps parents to warn teens about the dangers of driving too quickly – of course, it’s best to avoid calling your teen to warn them while they are driving.

Charged and Ready to Go

The vast majority of teenagers wouldn’t dream of letting their cell phone run out of juice. This means that cell phone companies can easily track teens around the clock – and, parents don’t have to worry about keeping a cell phone charged.

While some parents may find that adding GPS tracking devices to teen clothing or backpacks is a good way to keep tabs on their teen, equipping a teen with a cell phone is a whole lot easier. Parents can easily track teens most of the time, but there are some limits to cell phone tracking capabilities.

Trackless Times

If your teen happens to wander into an area that does not gain cell phone reception, then they can no longer be tracked. Depending upon the cell phone company, these areas can be numerous. Aside from no-reception areas, teens that lose their cell phone can no longer be tracked.

Most child abductors know that getting rid of a cell phone is the most important thing to do. Thus, relying upon a cell phone tracker in this instance would prove to be futile. To protect your teen at all times, you might want to consider placing an individual tracker someone in your teen’s clothing – this way, you can keep tabs on your teen no matter where they may roam.

At Rocky Mountain Tracking, we have taken an aggressive approach with our Teen Safety Program to help resolve most of the problems that parents are faced with on a daily basis.

Most parents who have teenage children are worried where they are, the type of kids they are hanging out with, if they are drinking or using drugs, if they are driving safely and for some, will they come home alive.

Auto accidents are the #1 cause of teen deaths. About 6,000 teens die every year from car accidents in the U.S. Teens lack maturity and experience to be safe drivers. The presence of passengers can increase the risk by distractions and peer pressure to take risks. According to The Insurance Institute For Highway Safety, “Training and education don’t change these tendencies. Don’t rely solely on driver education. High school driver education may be the most convenient way to learn skills, but it doesn’t produce safer drivers. Even graduated licensing doesn’t attempt to modify driver behavior directly.”

Driver’s education is important, but it does not reduce the need for a GPS monitoring device. Unfortunately, the problem is that so many crashes involve the driver’s attitude, not their skill. GPS Tracking can identify bad driving habits and allow the parent to correct these problems so they become safe drivers.

GPS tracking provides a balance of constant teen supervision but still allows them the freedom and privacy they deserve. It’s like being in the passenger seat next to the drive without actually being there.

Does tracking your teens driving show a lack of trust? No. In fact, tracking teens has proven to actually embrace more trust because the parent does not have to question the teen or place as many restrictions on them.

The cost of a GPS tracking or monitoring device is minimal. The cost of a life is priceless.

For more information, visit Rocky Mountain Tracking’s website