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Using GPS to Track Teens
Posted by
CowboyNeal
on Sat Dec 11, 2004 01:08 PM
from the big-mother-is-watching dept.
from the big-mother-is-watching dept.
jmoloug1 writes An article at CBSNews that describes a new service available to parents. It uses cell phone GPS to track how fast the teens are driving and then automatically sends an alert back to the parents when a certain limit has been exceeded. Bad idea for stupid parents who are going to be outwitted by their kids just turning off the phones? Best of all, it's endorsed by our former chief of military ops in Iraq!"
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It's a joke! (Score:5, Funny)
SMS - 1:11:18: Jacob is driving 120mph
SMS - 1:11:25: Jacob is driving 140mph
SMS - 1:11:29: Jacob is driving 180mph
SMS - 1:11:32: Jacob is driving 220mph
SMS - 1:11:33: Jacob is driving 0mph
Re:It's a joke! (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:It's a joke! (Score:3, Funny)
So What? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:So What? (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:So What? (Score:2, Insightful)
And set up speed traps accordingly.
Or better yet, just mail tickets to the
phone owners. Most will pay; those that
challenge them will have their tickets
dropped.
Is that enough YRO for you?
Re:So What? (Score:5, Insightful)
That said, as a parent I'd NEVER subscribe to this service. When I allow my children to drive, it will because they've demonstrated to me that they are mature enough to handle the responsibilty of driving a car. If I don't trust them enough to let them go out on their own, then they're not going out. Inferring that I have to spy on my kids with an electronic beacon is insulting to both me and them.
Parent
Re:So What? (Score:3, Insightful)
Why not underwear that can tell when teens are sexually aroused. That ought to stop sex in its tracks. Or condom packages that send an sms to the parents (and Walmart) letting them know its their kid's lucky day.
If parents are too busy to raise their kids by actual physical presence then they should not have them. And parents of teenagers
Re:So What? (Score:3, Informative)
Here's a hint: there's a big difference between "wanting to know something" and "being instantly informed about something". I have other ways besides a GPS tracker to figure out if my son is driving too fast.
Let me repeat: I would NEVER subscribe to a service lik this. If my kid's phone had a GPS tracker in it I'd be sure to teach him how to disable it. The only way my son's going to drive is if I *TRUST* him with that responsibility, and if I do trust him then spyi
Re:So What? (Score:4, Insightful)
My insurance company cares about two things: that I pay my premiums, and that if they can find any way to avoid having to pay out (or finding someone else to get the $$$ from), they will do it.
Some of the ways make sense: stupid people should have to pay stupid person insurance rates. Insurance fraud needs to be tracked down and cost-effectively reduced for all sorts of reasons.
Some of it doesn't: the insurance company has a "right" to track people so it can more easily justify it shouldn't have to pay out for their stupid activities, which they agreed to cover in the first place?
The cops? Well, from a human perspective, if I had to be a first-responder at stupid driver accidents all the time, I would want to try and do something to help prevent it, if only because of the sheer stupidity involved, but realizing that people, even people who think they're doing the right things (like driving 45mph in the left lane of a 60mph highway when there are no other cars around...), I would have to figure out that perhaps the best way is to NOT do too much. Stupid people will always figure out ways to circumvent things. Look at how many people STILL don't wear seatbelts.
Parent
Re:So What? (Score:5, Insightful)
If by "OK", you mean "legal", you're probably right. If you mean "OK" as in "a reasonable thing to do", then I must disagree. I'm quite alarmed at the many recent encroachments on their civil rights that children are forced to accept today (drug testing to be on the chess team, for example) because if kids grow up acquiescing to this kind of intrusion, they won't object when the congress decides to make it mandatory.
-jcr
Parent
Re:So What? (Score:5, Insightful)
I would not have been that teen, and neither would most of my friends. If my parents had ever tried that on me I would have found the little bastard all right. Fortunately I learned to drive in the seventies long before this kind of thing was even a gleam in some engineer's eye. But my father was too much of a gentleman to have ever foisted something like that on me, although as an electronics engineer with a Ph.D in nuclear physics he could certainly have done it, even way back then. I agree with the parent
Honestly, for most teenagers driving isn't a requirement, it's a luxury: primarily a social one at that. In cases where children have to work just for the family to have enough money to eat it would be different, of course: but survival dictates generally ensure that people in that position grow up fast. They aren't the target market for a teenager tracking system. Rich people don't care either: if their kid totals the car they buy him or her a new one (which explains why so many rich kids are jerks.) This is for the upper-middle-class yuppie type that is too busy counting his money and maneuvering for his next promotion to be bothered with actual parenting.
Raise your kid right and you won't need to worry about putting a GPS tracker in his car. Too much of modern American society has parents willingly giving up their legitimate duties to technology and government. It began with the television (that mind-robbing electronic babysitter) and now we've come to a point where we have so little faith in our ability to teach our children, and so little trust in them, that we need to track their every move.
My own feeling is that if this kind of thing becomes popular, all we will be doing is raising a generation that will be completely unconcerned about such trivial little issues as personal privacy. I'm sure our government would have no objection to that state of affairs.
Parent
Re:So What? (Score:3)
Detour to a plane (Score:2, Funny)
This is where you... (Score:5, Funny)
"I was speeding, dad? 1800mph you say, in the saturn?"
The next Geek Sport (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Your geek-fu is incomplete (Score:3, Interesting)
Copy data to clone the phone to people nationwide, and you can flip nodes on and off to simulate cell-boundary crossing. With prearrangement, you could make the phone appear to break lightspeed.
Re:This is where you... (Score:2)
Getting there, on the other hand...
Teens and mobile phones (Score:5, Funny)
What action will parents take? (Score:5, Insightful)
They'll phone them.
Stupid.
I say good. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I say good. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:I say good. (Score:3, Informative)
That's BS. No street car can do the quarter mile in 3-4 seconds. Even for top fuel dragsters (with much more power and much less weight than a street car) the average range is 5-6 sec. The fastest time a street car can achieve is generally in the 8-9 range, and even that is rare.
if you go to their website faq (Score:2)
you also discover, it does not work if they are on the phone.. kids in a fast moving car, could simply call each other, and 'flash' over if they get another call..
they won't turn off their phones, or change habits (Score:3, Informative)
Teens KNEW the cameras were there and also recording their voices and they STILL would do really stupid stuff, speeding, turning around and talking to passengers while driving, and just basically driving recklessly. No surprises.
They are just so absorbed in "their" worlds that nothing else matters.
Re:they won't turn off their phones, or change hab (Score:2)
man i dodged a bullet (Score:3, Insightful)
They're really trying to legislate the fun out of being young. I'm glad to be in my 20s right now.
Re:man i dodged a bullet (Score:2)
Re:man i dodged a bullet (Score:3, Informative)
Not going to work (Score:2)
Probably not this simple (Score:2)
2: The kids are NOT going to turn off their cell phones. Do you know any teenager that can stand being out of touch with their friends for even 5 minutes while eating dinner with the family? Yeah, right.
3: Could it help recover lost/stolen cell phones? That alone could be the killer feature.
4: Of course the kids are on to this, and there will be hacks to t
Won't somebody please! (Score:2)
Next the convicts.
Then those in public service.
And finally everyone else.
Why is it a bad idea if they turn off their phones (Score:3, Insightful)
If the phone goes off, it is assumed that they were speeding. If they complain, so be it, they dont need to drive. It's not hard to put your foot down, it just seems hard for parents to discipline these days.
Re:Why is it a bad idea if they turn off their pho (Score:2)
There is some logic in your statement, however, to assume that your teen would never forget to charge the phone (or plug it into the charger upon getting into a vehicle) would be rather shortsighted. It's one thing if the phone is sporadically dying for five minutes and then coming back on (IE... enough time for a drag race or something), but phones do die.
Lack of Parenting (Score:5, Insightful)
Violation of privacy, false sense of security. (Score:3, Interesting)
The system works up to 300m accurate in city centres, but might be as much as 35km accurate in rural areas (since there are less antennas that can be used in triangulating the signal).
Information about the end user is not available content providers, since those content providers receive only a unique static id for each customer that orders a Location Service.
A service using POS would be a lot better than a service where you rely on a specific kind of cellphone being on, not in use and equipped with a specific Java application (of which you have no clue what it in fact does, since it was installed for you).
The best thing of all: with POS users have to specifically approve requests for any content provider. So no sneaky applications that parents can install on mobile phones.
The invasion of privacy "offered" by the Teens Arrive Alive system should scare any sane American away from the system, assuming that the fact that it comes recommended by the former chief of military ops in Iraq wasn't enough to make you scream and run for your life.
this addresses teen driving safety how? (Score:5, Insightful)
How does this address teen driving safety?
Folks- repeat after me. Not Speeding != Safely driving.
Teens have a lot of problems with situational awareness- ie where other cars are around them. This is aggrivated by distractions in the car with them; teenage passengers, unlike adults, aren't as good as recognizing when they shouldn't talk to the driver. MA state law places restrictions on who can be in the car with young drivers.
Teens have a lot of problems with understanding what a car can and cannot do. They've probably never slammed on the brakes to see how slowly their car stops. They've certainly never been on a skidpad. They have no idea what ABS is for (neither do most adults; it's directional stability, NOT 'stopping as fast as possible'). They've never been taught when to steer around obstacles and when to brake for them, and certianly have never been asked to put into practice avoidance skills.
Teens are often given (or buy) the hand-me-down car, with old safety technology, bad tires/brakes/steering. There are exceptions, but it's rarely the rich kid who got a new small commuter car with 8 airbags and traction control who ends up splattered on a tree. It's the kid who works at the supermarket and drives a +15 year old car he/she bought for $500 and whose parents can't afford to help him/her keep it in excellent shape. Nevermind the safety ratings on inexpensive 0-20 year old US-made small cars is absolutely atrocious. Teens also like SUVs.
So basically: they need to focus and have situational awareness, they need to have a based-on-experience understanding of the capabilities of THEIR vehicle and basic car handling techniques, and they need to be driving reliable, safe cars.
Speed comes from a lack of the understanding of the implications (stopping distance skyrockets with speed, for example) and consequences (survivability in a collision plummets, for example). Policing them, just as policing adults, does not solve the root cause. Further- everyone else around them is going to be doing well over the speed limit, so not only are we being hypocritical, but they will be more of a hazard on the road to themselves and others!
I happen to find it hilarious, given light of recent events, that an automotive safety company has a Iraq war leader as their spokesman. Any comments about armour for Humvees, Mr. Franks?
GPS jammer (Score:3, Interesting)
"Gee, Dad, the GPS feature on my phone must not work in the car."
Speeds alone don't really tell a whole lot (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't know!
Don't need no new technology to do that. (Score:3, Interesting)
I worked for a cell phone company (GSM) and I once visited the main network control room and the operators showed me a software that allowed them to triangulate the position of any of their costumer by simply using the antennas of the network.
Also if I wanted to log the speed of a car when someone is using it, I'll think of a better idea. I'll hide a training/running watch with GPS in the trunk; Nobody can turn it off, no monthly subscription, you will be able to export the data on a computer and you will be the only one who can access the data.
GPS speed tracking ureliability (Score:3, Insightful)
The kid could be doing 45 in a 45 and the system comes up with the following:
13:00:01: 45 MPH Northbound
13:00:02: 105 MPH Northbound
13:00:03: 103 MPH Southbound
13:00:04: 90 MPH Northbound
13:00:05: 88 MPH Northbound
13:00:06: 45 MPH Northbound
Notice the nice average speed of 45 MPH Northbound - this is a logical failure mode for GPS where some of the intermediate positions are scrambled. Please, no one tell me the kid could actually be doing that, unless his car can stop and reverse at over 9G's.
Of course you can filter the data to eliminate this, but how to do avoid false negatives. Such as the kid ripping up and down the freeway at 105 and then driving off at the speed limit.
GPS positioning needs to be made better. Joggers using it to track their speed are very annoyed by the inaccuracies.
Maybe we need an urban positioning system based of triangulation of signal strengths and time delays of transmitters (such as cell towers). That might have made a better decision than GPS or a good backup for it for the E911 cell phone location system.
Hook it to the stereo. (Score:3, Funny)
No problem. (Score:3, Interesting)
Just keep the cell phone near the center of the car up near the roof. It will be blocked from GPS signals but still get cellular signals because they come in horizontally through the windows.
I predict a market for headliner mounted cell phone holders will develop.
Here's an idea.. (Score:3, Insightful)
I cannot find one single public school in the Bay Area that still teaches drivers ed. Getting a license is *TOO EASY* in California. You don't even have to speak English - they'll give you the test in your native language.
I say that before anyone gets a license, they must undergo no less than 16 hours of classroom training and defensive driving courses. If they pass, they get a license. If not, more training. There are just far too many people driving around here that really have no idea how to drive, and it's dangerous.
Forget this GPS tracking & tattle-tale electronics crap - just LEARN TO DRIVE.
God! We're putting a technology "solution" on a problem that has such obviously superior solutions - again.
The company founder is stupid (Score:3, Insightful)
Gimme a break. If you need to know these things about your kids, there's something wrong how you brought them up.
It's too late to track them.
usually pseudo-GPS in cell phones (Score:2)
Re:No, it's a great idea (Score:2, Funny)
Re:No, it's a great idea (Score:3, Insightful)
they already make the money, it just doesn't exist (Score:2)
a lot of carriers boast the e911 phones and sell it to safety-minded people. they neglect to tell those people that while the phone is e911 ready, there is no actual e911 s
Re:Kind of useless. (Score:3, Funny)
Well, Johnny, I guess if you can't be responsible enough to keep your cell charged, then you aren't responsible enough to be driving my car. Your ten speed is still in the garage, I'll drive you down to the bike store to get a patch kit.