Track Your Teen's Car With GPS

Using GPS to track vehicles isn't just for spies and police anymore.  With the trickle down of this powerful technology, companies are empowering consumers to take charge of their lives and install GPS devices in their vehicles.  The reasons to do this are varied: it could be used to help recover a stolen vehicle, or it could help keep tabs on someone borrowing your car - ensuring that they stay within the speed limit and drive safely, or it could even be used as a parenting aid to keep a rebellious teenager under the watchful eye of a parent.  How you choose to use it is up to you.

One of the most interesting ways to use this new technology is as a parenting aid.  By installing a GPS tracking device into your car or truck you gain an instant awareness of your teen's driving habits and location.  This can be very important for any number of reasons and in the hands of a wise and discerning parent can be a huge help in raising your kids to obey the law and be safe.

Cars are a huge part of teen culture.  They are the primary way that teens travel these days.  Long gone are the days when teens walked, road a bicycle, or took to bus to get places.  The automobile is the great mover of our teens.

Because cars are so importnat to teenagers you know that once your teen is able to legally sit behind that wheel you are going to get hounded about puting the keys into their hands.  They are going to say, "Come on dad, I need the keys to go over to Sarah's house.  Everyone is going there to watch a movie!"  Or they might say something like, "But mom, it will be so much easier for everyone if I just drive myself to school in the morning and drive myself home after soccer practice.  You and dad won't have to go out of your way to drop me off and pick me up anymore."  To be honest, there is often a lot of validity in what they are suggesting.

It really is easier for our teens to drive themselves around.  It does reduce the amount of time we spend driving around and running errands.  But there is still something in us that asks whether it is really okay for them to be driving themselves around.  "Is is safe?" we ask ourselves.  "Will they drive well?  Will I know where they are?"

Tracking teens with GPS is a great way to help you know the answers to all those questions while still enjoying the convenience of letting them drive themselves around. 

Advantages of GPS Tracking For Cars

There are a lot of advantages to using GPS tracking in a car.  Probably the most interesting advantage is that on many models you will not have to change the battery of the device.  This is because when the tracker is installed it draws power from the cars battery - and since this is recharged every time you start up the car the GPS unit will always have power as long as the car does.

Having to change bateries on covert GPS devices can be a huge pain.  Cars can easily avoid this type of menial task.  It also keeps your device secret for longer since there is less chance of detection since you won't be changing the tracker's battery every couple of days.  So if you wanted to keep your GPS device hidden from your teen this is a great perk.

Another key advantage to tracking your teenager's car is that they need it to get places.  This means that you will know where they are, how they got there, and at what speed they traveled there.  This will help you advise your teen on better routes to take and to keep a watchful eye on their speed and driving habits.  More teens die in car accidents than any other cause in the US, so safe driving is a must!

Still another advantage is that a GPS tracker in the car will also serve you ina quest to recover a stolen vehicle.  This isn't directly related to helping you keep track of your teen, but the tracking device still works this way.  Insurance premiums could drop if they knew you had a vehicle recovery system installed in your car and this could help offset some of the monthly subscription costs associated with this type of GPS tracking.

Disadvantages of GPS Tracking For Cars

Despite all of these positives there are some negatives in using this type of GPS tracking for teens.  For starters, not every teen is able to drive.  All states require that you be at least 16 to have a license and a few others push that age all the way up to 18 (for an unrestricted licence).  If your teen isn't able to drive then no amount of car tracking is going to help you keep them safe or know where they are.

A second disadvantage is that this type of tracking only works when your child is operating the vehicle.  You won't know much else about their location other than that the car is at the high school.  Now your teen said they were going to the football game, but there are some kids who sneak into the racquetball courts and smoke.  Is your kids one of them?  Having a GPS device installed int he car isn't going to tell you.

This highlights the fact that a car can easily be ditched and left behind.  A smart teen could easily come up with cover story after cover story while they secretly sneak behind your back and engage in activities that put them at risk.  They will think that they are having fun, but parents know what type of danger these activities present.

This type of tracking will also not help you if your child get abducted.  The assailant would have to steal your teens car with the tracking device for you to know where they are, and what are the chances of that happening?  Not very many.

If you are unfamiliar with how GPS is able to track your teen's car and let you know about, here is a very short primer:

GPS stand for Global Positioning System and it consists of a few dozen satellites that orbit around the earth. These satellites emit a radio like signal that special GPS receivers can pick up. The device you use to track your car can pick up these signals which communicate some information to your unit. This information can include the time the transmission was sent from the satellite and which satellite sent the message. Your GPS unit will then take that information and through the mathematical principles of trilateration calculate the unit's position at a certain point in time.

If you only had a GPS logger than that would be the end of it. But a GPS device that you could use in a car to track your teen is not going to be a GPS logger, it is going to be a GPS pusher. This device will then transmit the information that it calculated to a central processing center where the company that you bought your tracking subscription with will interpret the data and make it available to you via the internet or some other medium.

They should be able to provide you with information about the vehicles vector - its speed and its direction. This is important for a number of reasons already explained. They sometimes even keep a history of vehicle's location for a month or more!

This is the same exact way that GPS fleet tracking works, except that it is being applied to private use rather than commercial use.