GPS Tracking

Study on Teens and Car Accidents

In a recent study conducted by Liberty Mutual Insurance and Students Against Destructive Decisions (SADD), 68% of teens said they had narrowly avoided a crash, and more than half had experienced more than one close call in the past year. More than 2,000 students in 28 high schools were surveyed for this study, which was released on June 13.

Of those who said that they had a close call, 55% blamed other drivers or the weather. However, when asked as to what was happening during the exact time of that close call, 30% of teens said they were speeding, 21% said they were texting and 20% said they were talking to passengers in the car.

A similar study conducted by the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and State Farm Insurance in April, found that when crashes occurred because of an error made by a teen, 20% of the time distracted driving was to blame (texting, mp3 players, passengers, etc.). The study also found that speeding was responsible for 21% of crashes in which teens were at fault. According to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, teens are four times more likely to get into accidents than older drivers. About 3,000 teens died in auto accidents in 2009, and according to to CDC estimates,roughly 350,000 were treated for injuries.

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In 2005, approximately half of sixth graders in the United States reported that they owned a cell phone. Today, that statistic still holds, plus an additional one-third that claim they own a smart phone. This should not be surprising to many parents, as the teen tracking industry has expanded exponentially in the past half decade alone. Concerned parents have lauded GPS tracking technology for its ability to monitor the safe location of their children, and the ubiquity of GPS tracking systems have made it possible for younger generations to experience and innovate with a network that was originally designed as a tool of national security. With the student travel programs of many schools across the nation stuck in the 20th century, a company dedicated to enhancing the quality of education of our nation’s youth is incorporating teen tracking technology to bring field trips up to date.

Founded 45 years ago, WorldStrides is the first organization of its kind to be accredited as a travel study school. Today, a team of more than 400 professionals are dedicated to making a child’s educational experience as interactively and life-changing as possible. In partnering with SCVNGR, a social teen tracking application that allows participants to share pictures and location statuses using cameras and GPS tracking data, WorldStrides has designed an interactive, location-based game that students can play while on field trips. SCVNGR is used by students to answer questions about the historical and educational experiences they encounter on their field trip such as monuments, historical sites, and nature preserves. After snapping a photo, students can have their friends try and guess where they are before revealing the GPS tracking coordinates. Students can also use the teen tracking system to share personally-designed maps to the interesting places they have visited and encourage their friends to do the same.

In popular student travel destinations such as Washington D.C., SCVNGR utilizes the navigational capabilities of GPS tracking technology to provide the students with maps and routes that will avoid areas of high traffic or recent criminal activity in attempts to keep the trip as safe as possible. One of the chief designers of SCVNGR noted that in an age where technology has never been more prevalent among our younger demographics, the entire paradigm of experiential learning must also shift to keep students involved and interested. Truth be told, the New 3 E’s of Education (according to the 2011 Project Tomorrow report) are Enabled, Engaged, and Empowered. Educational teen tracking applications that utilize the safety and convenience benefits of GPS tracking technology allow for schools across the country to ensure these principles are brought classrooms nationwide.

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Although technically the shortest month of the year, the short days and uneventful nights can make February seem to last for an eternity. As this notoriously bleak month approaches its conclusion, spring fever is abound, and this can be seen most clearly in young school students eagerly anticipating their spring break. The temptation to skip school is always there, and now law enforcement and school officials in Anaheim, California are taking action with the help of GPS tracking technology.

Teen tracking programs that incorporate GPS tracking have been met with past success in school districts throughout the nation, including San Antonio and Baltimore. In these two cities, attendance rates among middle and high school students jumped from roughly 77 to 95 percent after the GPS tracking devices were issued. Seventh and eighth graders with four or more unexcused absences are labeled “chronically truant” by the Anaheim Union High School District, and teen tracking service providers are aiming to mirror the success realized in other national school districts to provide an intervention to help these students develop better attendance habits.

Parents wishing to participate in the teen tracking program in California are worried that continued unexcused absences will result in mandatory summer school attendance or even a stay in juvenile hall. Orange County law enforcement officials claim that children who routinely skip school are exponentially more likely to join gangs, and the state grant that is currently funding the program attests to the state’s commitment to working with schools, parents, and law enforcement to curb this troubling trend.

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WOODSTOCK (Friday, March 20, 2009) – With the rapid expansion of Global Positioning System (GPS tracking) technologies, comes an often-repeated debate : security versus spying.

The newest gadgets are often compact, discreet and highly-sensitive vehicle tracking devices that – with the help of a constellation of 24 U.S. Department of Defense satellites – can record as many as 300 hours of driving data, including route, speed and duration of stops. Others open a window to that same information in real time, second by second, via the Internet.

But who has the right to ride invisible shotgun on someone’s personal car trips?

As demographics go, parents are one of the biggest groups investing in GPS tracking technologies and their teens are the tracking subjects.
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Concerned parents place a vehicle tracking system on there son’s truck and find shocking results. When Donna and Glen decided that they would place a GPS tracking system on there 16 year-old son’s truck they did not know what to expect. Feeling that today’s world was much more dangerous then the one they grew up in, Donna and Glen placed a GPS Tracking Key, a GPS tracking system that monitors speed and stops, on there typical teen’s car and then reviewed the historical data together. With less than 72 hours worth of data, they discovered that there son not only went to a unsupervised drinking party, but he also drove at dangerous speeds close to 100mph!

We’ve all seen this at one time or another along the side of the road:  a cross or other distinguishable marker bearing a name and an inscription and usually surrounded by flowers.  A curious motorist might think it unfortunate.  For the parents of a teenager, however, the roadside shrine is an emotionally disturbing reminder of their child’s mortality.

Car crashes are the leading cause of permanent disability and death among teenage drivers in America and other industrialized nations throughout the world.  In 2005, more than 7,000 young people between the ages of 15 and 20 were involved in fatal automobile accidents, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.  Findings also indicate that each year, in North America alone, over 2.5 million teens will become new drivers.  And each year, teens overall will be involved in over 9,000 driving related fatalities, taking not only their own lives, but those of passengers and pedestrians as well.

To any seasoned driver, this information comes as no surprise.  Teens by nature succumb to peer pressure which invariably leads to risk taking, especially behind the wheel.  While alcohol and drugs remain major contributors to teenage motor vehicle accidents, this new millennium has ushered in the additional distraction of cell phones and MP3 players.

“So how do I keep my teen from becoming one of these awful statistics?”

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With GPS Tracking, Good Judgment Must Prevail

“Don’t get caught” is the maxim under which most teens have lived roughly since the beginning of time, and apparently Brock Eddins, a 16 year-old from Theodore, Alabama, was no exception. (more…)

Teen driving have caused the highest fatality for teenagers in a number of years.  Recently ABC’s Good Morning America published an article related to teen driving.   One of the many causes of poor teen driving are distractions.  “Eighty-seven percent of the 6,000 teens that die every year die because of driving with distractions,” Allstate Insurance spokeswoman Megan Brunet said. 

According to a study by Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and State Farm Insurance, driving without a seatbelt or driving high speed with another teen proved to be one of the deadliest situations for teen driving.  In the research study, out of 10,000 teen drivers who were killed, 50% of them were with another teen and over 75% of them occur in speed limits above 45mph.

With the information from Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and State Farm Insurance, ABC Good Morning America decided to do a teen driving test and here’s the results.

Teen Driving Test

Correspondent David Kerley and his teen daughter Devan, who has been driving for one year, took the challenge.

The pair used the Allstate Insurance practice course and Devan got all the basics, like aggressive braking and collision avoidance.

Once she got the hang of it, distractions were added to the equation. First, texting was brought into the mix. As Devan read a text, she jerked the wheel and hit the course cones. When friends were brought in as backseat passengers, the distraction proved too much for Devan, who hit more cones.

Even eating brought problems. As Devan handed cookies to her passengers, she hit additional cones on the course.

“It was kind of like panic [because] I was trying to listen to them and I wasn’t looking ahead,” she said after completing the course.

“Those cones could have been people, and when you’re distracted, you aren’t able to avoid those cones or whatever they may be,” she said.

Devan said she found the course extremely useful.

“I think this would be a cool course, standard procedure, for teens trying to get their licenses,” she said.