Tag: car tracking

Car Tracking Devices: Considered and Evaluated

Car tracking devices are anything but cheap. If you are going to buy one of these high tech, expensive products there are several things that you should know about them before committing your finances (and in some cases, your security) on a device that you know will work in theory, but have no experience in practice.

The first area that this article is going to examine is the different ways that people often use car trackers. After a brief examination we will examine some of the tracker characteristics that any potential customer should evaluate before making their final decision.

Ways To Use a Car Tracking Device

There seem to be four main reasons to use a GPS tracking device inside a car. They are to track inexperienced, immature drivers, verify suspicions of infidelity, improve business operations, and recover property.

Teen Drivers

We have gone into great detail about the different reasons why a parent would install a tracking device in their teen’s car. We have even discussed some of the ways that a tracking device for cars can be leveraged to help make teens safer drivers. Needless to say we won’t go into a lot of that stuff here. You just need to know that more teens die each year from automobile accidents than any other cause. These are all preventable deaths and are often the fault of the teens themselves.

If you knew that a tracking device would save your teens life, would you spend the $400 for it?

Catching Cheaters

Cheaters suck. They often lie. They also need to be caught. Most of the time the person being cheated on needs help in pinning the cheater into a corner so that they have to admit their infidelity. GPS tracking can often help them in this endeavor. Simply install a tracker in the vehicle of the suspected cheater (but only if you own that vehicle – tracking another person’s property without their consent is illegal) and you can know for certain if they are staying at work late or doing something a little more suspect.

Fleet Vehicle Tracking

Car GPS tracking has a long and proven track record in commercial applications. It has been shown to improve worker productivity, reduce costs, enhance the customer experience, and improve vehicle maintenance. What more could a business owner want?

Theft Recovery

Theft happens. Having a device that will tell you where your car is in real time when you wake up in the morning and your car isn’t out front can be invaluable. It is also nice to know that the crooks that stole your car are going to prison rather than profiting off of your property.

Considerations For Choosing A GPS Car Tracking Devices

If you come to the conclusion that you need a device to track a car then you have to take several things into consideration when making your decision. These devices are anything but cheap, so making sure you pick something that is going to meet your needs is very important. Here is a list of some of the main things you will want to think through:

Hardwired Vs. Stand Alone

This may not sound like that big of a decision, but it is probably one of the most important decisions that you need to make. The main reason for this is battery life. Tracking devices, especially real time tracking devices, run through battery power very quickly. Some GPS car tracking devices, like the Zoombak, only have an active tracking life of several hours. That is extremely low if you need to track the vehicle for longer than that.

Hardwired car tracking devices have the benefit of getting their power directly from the vehicle itself. As long as your battery is live your tracker will be able to give you the position of the car. Some hardwired trackers can be installed covertly so that they are not easily seen or accessible. Others are installed under the steering wheel in the OBD-II port and can be easily seen if you know what to look for.

Stand alone devices do not benefit from the car’s power source and must rely on their own battery. This means that you can have an active tracking life of several weeks to just a few hours depending on the type and size of the tracker you are using. This can be fine – it just depends on what you are using the tracker for and how much money you want to spend on it all.

Real Time Vs. Data Loggers

GPS logger

Probably the next most important thing for people to think about when going with a car tracker is whether or not they want to see the position information in real time or if they are alright with recording the data and looking at it later, after the device has been retrieved from the vehicle. Most people want to do the tracking in real time. There is just something special about being able to watch your asset move from location to location.

The price tag on real time car tracking devices is nothing to sniff at. They are often much more expensive, two to three times as expensive, than their data logging counter parts – and that doesn’t even take into consideration the monthly subscription fee required by most tracking providers. When that is taken into consideration it can cost four times as much just in the first year alone!

But if your need is for a real time tracker then you are going to fork out the cash.

Web-Based Vs. Software Based

Many people looking for GPS tracking want something that they can access from any web enabled computer. This is most often available with real time GPS tracking devices. This is because the tracking device will transmit the position and vector data over a wireless network to your tracking provider. The provider will then make this data available to you on a secure website available on the internet. Only you are going to be able to access the information since you are the only one with the user name and password for the tracker.

Here is a graphic of how this all works:

How web based tracking works

Software based car tracking devices are generally data loggers. Most of the time the data logger comes with a CD that contains some sort of tracking software that you need to install on your computer to make sense of the data the device records. For example, the i-Got U GT-600 comes with this type of software on a small mini-CD. The software works with the device to display your trip data on pretty Google-based maps and helps you integrate photos into your journey. The software then lets you post this information out on to the web if you want to share the data with friends or family.

While most car tracking devices don’t need some of the features available on the i-GotU (that device is designed to help people share vacations, hikes, or other fun excursions), they will have some sort of software that will help you make sense of the data on the tracker. This is helpful for users because it means you don’t need to know a ton about telemetry in order to make sense of your tracking information.

Covert Vs. Open

You are wanting a car tracking device for a certain reason, and that reason is going to determine whether or not you want to use a covert tracker or something that is a little more easily seen and accessed. Above we mentioned 4 different applications where are GPS car tracker would be useful. Here are some of the defining characteristics of a covert vs. open deployment in each category:

CovertOpen
Teen Drivers
  • Engaged in or suspected of illegal activity
  • Extremely rebellious and likely to destroy or bypass car tracker
  • Acts also as a good theft recover device
  • Parents have a relationship of trust and mutual respect
  • Teen sees tracker as safety device and is clearly aware of consequences of bad driving
Catching Cheaters
  • Cheater is suspicious of you knowing
  • Cheater could turn violent and abusive if your search for truth is discovered
  • Cheater is observant or tech savvy
  • None
Fleet Vehicle Tracking
  • Acts as an excellent theft recovery device
  • Catches wasteful employees in the act
  • Reminds employees to work their best all the time
  • Allows for integration with dispatchers, increasing efficiency in workforce
  • Promotes healthy employer/employee relationships
Theft Recovery
  • Hidden trackers will be overlooked by less accomplished criminals
  • Ability to work as long as the battery is still giving power to the car
  • None

As you can see, there are some applications where having an easily accessible car tracking device is not really in your best interest. You can still use it in these instances, you just run the risk of wasting your money.

Should You Use A Car Tracking Device?

Not everything labeled as a car tracking device is going to be what you are looking for for your particular needs. Be sure to carefully consider the purchase you are making. Ask questions of yourself and the potential supplier. The more questions you ask, the better informed you are going to be and the more successful you are going to be in your desire to track a car with GPS.

Who’s To Blame For Spouse GPS Tracking?

I got a very interesting comment that I assumed was in relation to my post on Tracking Your Spouse With GPS. I’ll quote most of it below, but the general gist of the comment was that if a husband is cheating on a wife then it is the wife’s fault for being fat, ugly, stupid, withholding sex, etc. I think that this is the most absurd comment that I think I have ever heard in my life – so it almost doesn’t even warrant a response. But just in case someone comes along and is convinced by some of the arguments because there is no rebuttal I have decided to write this post. It will also allow me to make a few comments on the topic of who is to blame for GPS tracking a spouse and what can be done once the cheating has been discovered.

Here is the comment:

MMM. . . which is the greater betrayal, banging some broad on the side, or surreptitiously sneaking a high tech digital tracking device on your spouse, without his knowledge.

One thing, as a husband who cheated on his wife and is now on his second marriage (with whom he was cheating, and who herself was cheating on her hubby), I can tell you what the problem is.

YOU. For you it is easier to get a gadget, catch him in “ultimate betrayal” and make it all his fault and turn him into your puppy, than it is to work on the real problem. Are you fat, uninteresting, do you nag, did you give up that whole “makeup” thing years ago for a comfy flannel nightshirt and sweat pants. More interested in the latest gossip from your neighbor than hitting the gym, and wearing something sexy with candles and a surprise dinner when hubby gets home? Did you stop doing that “other” stuff, except on birthdays.

Of course, he could have turned into a complete slob that you are no longer interested in. . . but then, ask yourself, if he is so disgusting you don’t want to do him, why do you care if he is doing someone else?

Skip the gizmo, go to marriage counseling.

The first part of his argument is to throw into doubt whehter it is actually more evil to commit adultery or to track your spouse without their knowledge.  He really doesn’t offer any arguments for why this is so, he just makes a naked assertion of the fact by posing it as a question.  Because of this, his point makes absolutely no sense to me and leaves me answering him like this, “The greater betrayal is banging someone on the side! Why don’t you see that?”

Then he begins his next paragraph with this wonderful gem:

One thing, as a husband who cheated on his wife and is now on his second marriage (with whom he was cheating, and who herself was cheating on her hubby), I can tell you what the problem is.

The person who wrote this comment is himself a cheater.  As a cheater, he is trying to establish himself as an authority on why a person might cheat on a spouse.  Because he cheated he must know the psychology of a cheater and must be qualified to tell us all the “real truth” about why a spouse might cheat and why it is a “greater betrayal” to track a cheating spouse.

However, all that his admission does for me is diminish his credibility.  He has admitted that he cannot be trusted.  He is a man who makes promises and breaks them when it becomes convenient for him.  This fact is extremely important it ought to inform how we should see everything else that he has to say.

The very next thing that he says is that the reason spouses cheat is because the other spouse is the problem.  Really? You broke your promise to somebody and then you say that they are the reason why you broke YOUR promise? I doesn’t work that way. The only person who can break a promise that they made is the person who made the promise.

What is going on is that he is trying to make his moral, intellectual, and emotional failure all about his spouse.  He calls her fat, uninteresting, a nag, frumpy, a gossip, and a prude.  Is that really true? Probably not.

Then he tries to show some compassion for the wife whose husband has cheated.  He suggests that maybe the reason that she is being such a prude and denying her husband her body is that he has turned into a “slob.”  But then he seems to think that since you don’t want to be intimate with him that this somehow give him the right to be intimate with some other woman!  After all, why would you care that a person who promised that they would be faithful to you is being unfaithful to you.  That really doesn’t matter does it? 

The commentor seems to think that breaking the marriage promise is no big deal – that marriage is something that is worthless and without deep meaning.  But that is exactly the type of thinking that I would expect from someone who has cheated and is without remorse. Marriage to such a person means nothing. They have proven it by their actions. 

He doesn’t seem to understand what marriage is and why people make vows to each other during the marriage ceremony.  A promise is a promise, and when you break those promises you have to take it seriously.

He then actually gives some good advice in the very last sentence of his comment.  Going to marriage counseling is a very important thing for a couple to do if they want to salvage a relationship after one spouse is caught cheating on the other.  Cheating is always a signal that a relationship has some sort of sickness within it, and finding out what that sickness is and working on its cure is of the utmost importance when you want to save the marriage.

But the sad thing is, most cheaters will not admit a need for marriage counseling until they are caught in their cheating.  And a spouse often cannot catch their spouse cheating without some type of GPS tracking.  When it comes to tracking your spouse there are really two different options available to wives and husbands who suspect that their spouse is being unfaithful.  The first is to track their cell phone.  A lot of the newer cell phones have the capability to be tracked by GPS if the proper software is installed on the device.  There is plenty of free GPS tracking software out there, but not all of it is compatible with every type of phone out on the market.  Also, a problem with a free tracking method is that they are generally not very covert – making it rather difficult to use it to catch your spouse in the act of cheating.

Another option is to track your spouse’s car with GPS.  GPS tracking for cars is a very popular application of GPS technology and has been used extensively by businesses to improve fleet performance and increase revenues. As a result of this usefulness, GPS manufacturers have tried to make these devices as cheap and accessible as possible to a wide range of businesses. A nice side effect of this effort is that it has made these devices available on the consumer market. While car tracking is a very effective means of tracking a cheating spouse, it is far from perfect. While the movement of a car does tell you a lot about a person’s activity, it is not the same as a cell phone which is often taken everywhere a person might go. However, what car tracking gives up in ubiquity it gains back in covert tracking capabilities.

Most car tracking GPS devices are extremely covert and can fit securely inside a wheel well or under the rear bumper. Unless your spouse has a habit of looking in these places there is often very little chance that they are going to find out that you are tracking their movements via GPS.

Whichever method of spouse GPS tracking you might decide to use, it is my opinion that you are well within your rights to track your spouse in this way. Some people might disagree with me, and it might be illegal in some states for spouses to track each other without their express consent, but that is my opinion. And the cheater bears full responsibility for their own cheating, they are to blame for their own promise breaking. They are the liar and are fully responsible for their own actions.

GPS Car Tracking, GPS Blockers, and Stalkers

There is more news coming out of Wisconsin related to the world of GPS tracking.  A La Crosse man was convicted of stalking his estranged wife with a GPS tracking device installed in her car.  Apparently, the man was just keeping tabs on her because of some custody issues that they were working out.  If a police complaint about the convict is true, he used the GPS device to track his wife as far as Iowa, harassing his her with his presence.

He entered an Alford plea to the charge, which means he thinks he is ‘Not Guilty’ but still thinks a jury will convict him, and will suffer two years of probation and six months of local confinement – meaning that the person who once used GPS tracking to stalk will now have his location tracked with GPS.  How ironic.

But this particular case is not of necessarily of interest because of this irony but because of two other things that have happened in the past couple of  months.  The first is that police in Wisconsin can GPS track cars without warrants according to a Wisconsin VI District Court of Appeals decision issued in March of 2009.  This means that police can place a tracking device on any person’s vehicle that they feel like could be a suspect in a case without any warrant.  If they thought that you were somehow a part of the mafia they could place one in your vehicle without you knowing and expect you to like it.

What makes this interesting is that apparently this same ability doesn’t transfer over to private citizens, or at least private citizens with restraining orders on them.  This is great news for all of us that might fear a neighbour or complete stranger might be stalking us and be well within their rights.  Apparently, only the police can stalk people without getting in trouble with the police …

But this leads to a related thing that is kind of interesting about this whole story – that GPS tracking blockers can be pretty useful devices.  If you are having someone stalking you with a real-time tracking device installed in your car then there is no better way of getting them off your back than installing one of these devices (Update 4/16/2012:  GPS jammers are illegal and should not be used).  This isn’t something that most people are going to need and certainly isn’t something I would recommend having just in case – but if you are being harassed or stalked by someone with even the littlest bit of technical knowhow or if they seem to be showing up in places they shouldn’t know about then getting a GPS tracking blocker may be a good, safe thing to do.

The other thing that made this particularly interesting is just how widely available GPS tracking is.  Even a stalkers in Wisconsin can get their hands on it.  Just a few years ago GPS navigation units were over $500 – well outside the range of most people both then and now.  Today, however, you can make your own real-time tracking device for $40 upfront and a $30 monthly fee with a cell phone and some free GPS tracking software.  These types of tracking devices are very easy to set up and take very little skill to do.

But even without cheating and using a cell phone, some covert GPS tracking devices are fairly reasonably priced these days.  An effective real-time tracking device can be purchased for well under $200, with some GPS loggers coming in at under $100.  A GPS logger isn’t going to need a monthly subscription either, making it very easy to purchase and use extensively (but probably not by a stalker – so you are probably going to be good).

GPS is just going to become more prevelant as the years roll on and we are going to have to deal with GPS tracking on a much higher level than ever before.  I can forsee in the future a time when letting someone GPS track your location is a sign that you are in a serious relationship with them, much like giving them acess to your email account might be today.  Teens will track their boyfriends and girlfriends for the one day that they are a couple, only having to find a way to cleanly break such intimate knowledge.  This may seem funny now, but in five years I really think that this is going to be a reality.

It may seem a little scary, but GPS tracking is going to be the norm rather than the exception.

Covert GPS Tracking: A Short Story

“Blue Dodger, this is Home Base.  Do you read me!? Over.”  The radio gives a slight crackle as the voice of Home Base abruptly ends with a click.  You slowly touch the radio button on your vest and respond to Home Base, “Home Base, this is Blue Dodger.  I copy.  Over.”  You feel a slight tickle of excitement course through your veins as you await the message.  You know that Home Base is going to be giving you something good.   You have installed a covert GPS tracking device on a target vehicle and Home Base is going to be giving you the coordinates for you to track it down and discover what they are up to.

“Blue Dodger, we have the vehicle parked outside 13141 West Palm Avenue.  Head on over and report back your findings.”  This is your very first covert op and you feel a surge of adrenaline wash over you like a shore breaking wave, smoothly rattling the content of your chest.  The drive to the location isn’t long and you soon find yourself on a normally quiet residential street with cars lined up bumper to bumper on both sides of the street.  You find the 1995 Teal Corolla that you attached your covert GPS tracking device to parked exactly where Home Base said it was, but the car is empty.

“Home Base, this is Blue Dodger.  I’ve found the vehicle, but its clean.  I’ll park and see if I can get a visual. Over.”

“That’s a Roger, Blue Dodger.  Report in when you have a visual.”

You get out of the car and park.  Your palms begin to sweet as you slowly walk through the lamp lit street, keeping a low profile while trying to observe as much as you can.  As you make your way back to the Corolla you notice the sound of loud, thumping music coming from the other end of the street.  Without any sign of activity at 13141 West Palm Avenue you make your way toward the music.

As you draw closer you begin to hear the din of voices, laughing and the steady thumping of base.  It looks like the driver of the Corolla may be at this party.  Unfortunately, you don’t have your party threads on and the age of the crowd is significantly below your own – but you press on anyway knowing that you need to find the driver of the Corolla before it is too late.  You radio back to Home Base, “This is Blue Dodger, I’m going in.”

The music inside the house is deafening and it is all you can do to hug a wall and work your way around the interior of the house.  There is no communication with Home Base now.  You scan the crowd looking for the driver you were tracking but they are nowhere to be found.  Then, all of a sudden, you see in the other room a the long blond hair of the driver you have been trying to covertly track.  She is standing talking to a man several years her elder, his face stubbled with  a healthy five o’clock shadow.

You make your move on the target.

But before you do, you need to create a diversion to get her away from Mr. Five O’Clock.  You pull out your trusty cell phone that has been relaying your position to Home Base via GPS.  You send a simple text message, using your full qwerty keyboard because that is how you roll, with the message,

create diversion. call target. test time

In just a moment you see Long Blond Hair reach into her bag and pull out a glowing, vibrating cell phone.  She looks up at Mr. Five O’Clock shadow and seems to say something.  He smiles and waves as she leaves the room.  She walks past you in a hurry, but you are still holding the wall tight and she doesn’t notice.  You had anticipated that since the room is dark except for the constant flashing of mutli-colored lights.

Long Blond Hair leaves the house at a run and is soon 50 feet away from the house when she puts the still glowing and vibrating cell phone to her ear.  “Hello,” her voice sounds strong and confident.  She pauses for just a second, then with an oune of frustration in her voice she says, “What do you want?  I’m watching a movie at Katie’s house.”  You walk up behind her and tap her on the shoulder.

She turns around with a sudden look of horror on her face.  “Dad,” she says with a little fear in her voice, “What are you doing here?”

“I think the question is, honey, what are you doing here?”

~~~

You don’t have to be a spy or a member of the FBI to be able to use covert GPS tracking.  With GPS in cell phones and other personal devices a parent, spouse, concerned citizen, or private investigator can track a wide aray of items or assets with GPS.  You can install GPS trackers in cars or use them to monitor a teen’s driving habits.

If you want to go with traditionally covert GPS devices then you are going to need to fork out some significant cash.  Round the clock monitoring and real-time tracking capabilities do not come cheap – so expect to shell out $100s just for the device itself.  Then you are also going to need to pay up for a service fee as well so you can get access to your tracking information.  You might be able to build your own system out of one of the open source GPS tracking devices that have skematics on the Internet, but then you need some high quality GPS tracking software as well to make sure that your data is getting stored and displayed properly.  There is open source software for this too, but you will have to trade some of your precious time to learn how to use it.

In the end analysis, almost anyone with enough money is going to have access to tracking with GPS – and you don’t even need that much money anymore to get some really cool, cover GPS tracking devices.

How to Reward and Punish Your Teens Driving Habits

Teen’s are terrible drivers.  Their unique combination of inexperience and raging hormones make them them the most likely among all age ranges to get into fatal car crashes.  As concerned parents we want to get our teens to drive safely and to obey the rules of the road, especially when driving home at night or when their friends are with them in the car.  These are the times that we wish that the beneficial effect that we have on our teen’s driving would be felt the most, but these are often the times when our child is the least likely to drive like we are right there with them.

Teen Car Crash
You never want to receiver that call from the police that your teen has been in a a car crash. Using GPS tracking in their car is a great way to help them drive like you are there with them.

I have already talked extensively about how GPS tracking can put you in the car with your teen, so I am not going to rehash that discussion here in full.  Instead, I thought it might be a good idea to discuss some of the different parenting techniques that we can employ once we have installed the GPS tracking device inside out teen’s car. We will begin with a discussion of the teen’s rewards and follow that up with a discussion of the punishments associated with bad driving practices.

But before we do, we should look at some of these important teen tracking tips:

  • Tell your teen about the tracker – You cannot make the punishment and reward system for safe driving work for your family if your teen is unaware that the GPS tracking device exists.  Tell them about your plan in such a way that they will get on board with your desire to monitor their driving activity.  Even if they don’t like the idea at first, they will warm up to it after you lay out some effective rewards and punishment.
  • Be very clear about the rewards – Communicating clear and worthwhile rewards to your teen is going to make this whole process a lot easy.  They need to know the answer to the question “What’s in it for me?” question right away.   If you can’t communicate that to the in 5 minutes then you need to rethink your reward system communication.
  • Be even clearer about the punishments – You are probably going to need to punish your teen driver at one point in time.  The best way to do so is to communicate the consequences of their actions very, very clearly.  They need to know exactly what is going to happen to them when they do something wrong so that there is no room for them wiggle out of the consequences of the action that the GPS tracker caught them doing.
  • Make it fun and safe – Teen’s love the idea of “fun” and, as a parent, if you can make something that you want them do be fun then you are well on your way to getting them to successfully accomplish that which you want them to.  It can be very satisfying as a parent to watch your teen act safely because they value it and think it is “fun” – you know that all your hard work is really paying off!

How To Reward Your Teen

Rewarding your teen should be more about character than about materialistic things.  What I mean by this is that you want to reward your teen with added responsibility and freedom than with cool toys and nice clothes.  You want your teen to grow up and experience what life is like for themselves, not treat them like a little child who is motivated by empty and shallow things.  So in order to do that you need to sit down and think about what ways you can reward your child’s good driving habits that will enable them to mature and grow into the full person that they are meant to be.

An example reward might be something like an extended curfew or additional car use privledges.  By extending their curfew you are communicating to your teen that their driving habits are safe and that they are worthy to be trusted.  The more personal freedom that you give your teen, the more that you teach them being wise and safe is a good thing to do, the more you will teach your teen to be an upstanding member of society and a good person.

Another similar example of this is by giving your teen additional car use privledges.  You could let them drive the car to a friends house or to the mall.  You might even begin to trust them with driving their siblings to after school activities or sporting events.  Either way, your teen will learn that their behavior is being rewarded by giving them greater access to the family vehicle.

So that covers the actual rewards that one might think of giving their teen, but what about the things that the teen will be rewarded for? You obviously want to reward them for good driving habits, but what exactly are the habits that you most want to reward?

Here is a list of some of the more important driving practices:

  • Obeying the speed limit – This is very easy to monitor using a GPS tracking device for cars.  Since they take constant measurements of the vehicles position all they need to do to calucluate speed is take the distance traveled and divide it by the time elapsed.  Most GPS devices can monitor speed even if they aren’t a GPS tracking device, so it is pretty easy for parents to monitor this aspect of their teen’s driving.  (This is also very important for saving money on gas costs!)
  • Taking turns at appropriate speeds – Because you can monitor their speed it is easy enough to find their speed when taking turns.  Taking a turn too fast can signify inexperience on the part of your teen or that they pulled out in front of oncoming traffic, both things that you want to try and avoid if possible.
  • Making smooth starts and stops – Brakes are expensive and engines like to opperate under gradual increases of speed.  A smart, safe driver will treat their car right and reduce the need for preventable maintenance on their vehicle.
  • No erratic driving patterns – Tracking units are very percise, with some models being able to tell which lane a vehicle is in!  If your teen is switching lanes wildly then you will know that they are not driving safely.  You can also be able to see that their vehicle changes lanes well or makes turns in an appropriate fashion.

If your teen meets your safe driving requirement then it is time to reward them, but if they don’t you need to dole out punishments.

How To Punish Your Teen

When punishing your teen for poor driving I would recommend going with character punishments.  A teenager must know that the consequences of bad driving are very real and very, very serious.  Lives are on the line every time you step behind the wheel and a teen should be able to feel that when they do something stupid with a car.

A character punish could be something as sever as a suspension of car driving privileges, but it can also be something not necessarily car related.  In my opinion, taking away a teen’s driving privileges should only be done in the most dire conditions.   This is mainly because a teen cannot learn to drive safely if they are not driving at all, but also because it can be very convenient for a family to have an additional driver in the house – especially if they help with some of the driving responsibilities that the family has.

Some more modest character punishment that you might consider could be:

  • Suspension of computer privileges
  • Limits on cell phone usage
  • Making them stay home when normally they would allowed to go out
  • Limiting their TV watching
  • Ending access to video game systems or computer games
  • Making their curfew earlier in the evening
  • Having them do some sort of task as “punishment” – like clear brush, pick up trash on the side of the highway, or visit accident victims in the hospital

All of these consequences for bad driving won’t work for every teen, but if you can find the right combination for your teen then you stand a good chance of getting them to drive safely with a solid combination of rewards and punishments.

How To Set Up The System

If your teen meets your driving requirements then it is time to give them some rewards.  I recommend that you set some type of quota based on the number of hours driven rather on a number of days or just deciding to reward your teen whenever you feel like it.  The more experience your teen gets behind the wheel the more likely they are to drive safely when they are out of the house and out on their own.

I definitely recommend starting small.  If they can last the first 100 hours of driving and drive in such a way that they honor your family’s good driving practices then they can get one of the minor character rewards set up in your system.  Maybe you grant them some additional free time for them to do with what they will or you begin asking them to drive a younger sibling to one of their practices once a week.

100 hours certainly isn’t a hard and fast rule, but when you think about 100 hours can add up really fast, especially if you live far away from a lot of things in your life.  A 15 minute drive to school in the morning and then another 15 minutes home turns into 100 hours in 200 days.  That is approximately one school year – and that is only if they drive to school. With all the time they spend heading out to the movies or over to a friends house the time is really going to add up fast.  Before you know, after 3 months they are going to be ready for their first reward if they have driven well.

I also recommend that when you punish a teen it is because of repeat offenses.  So you might knock their curfew back 15 minutes if they perform 3 sudden stops over a 3 month period.  Or you might suspend their cell phone use for violating the speed limit two times over a 6 month period.  Feel free to get creative with your own set of rules – just make sure that you live up to the same standard as your teen!

With GPS, Teen Drivers Can Be Safe Drivers

Teen Driver

If you work your system correctly and you know your teen driver then you can get them to drive safely even if you aren’t in the car with them.  By installing GPS tracking device in their car and by setting up a quality, well-communicated reward and punishment system you can make safe driving something that everyone in your family is able to do – even if they are inexperienced and raging with hormones.  It is important to note that is not going to be the solution for every family.  Some GPS tracking systems can cost hundreds of dollars on the outset and still have a reoccuring subscription fee equivalent to a cell phone plan.  But for those families that can afford something like this it can empower you as a parent to help make your teen a safe driver.