Memphis police surprised by initial lack of help by OnStar

.... MEMPHIS, Tenn. Memphis police thought they'd have an easier time locating the vehicle of a man killed in a carjacking because the S-U-V had OnStar.But the process of finding Frederick Houston's 2000 Chevrolet Tahoe and his murderer became problematic because of the 35-year-old man's death Friday night.... Read the whole story here: http://www.volunteertv.com/Global/story.asp?S=3552633

One of the singularly most useless implementations of potentially helpful GPS technology in today's market is the most well known, OnStar and: http://www.onstar.com/us_english/jsp/index.jsp

These guys represent themselves as a great boon to mankind, cradling the users in an extra safety net, ad nauseum. Let's call a spade a spade.

First of all, OnStar operates only to promote profit to OnStar. What? Don't all companies need to make a profit? Well, of course, but for $700 (or more) purchase costs plus monthly fees of at least $17, owners might expect to be treated as if they actually owned the system they bought. The list of services OnStar won't perform for the owner is long, and, as this current example shows, they frequently won't help the police very expeditiously. Not only did OnStar's response in this case (in this writer's opinion of course, gotta have the legal disclaimers in place when dealing with an 800 pound gorilla) delay a murder investigation, OnStar has a long history of providing erroneous information to police (tracking the wrong car) and flatly refusing to provide information ... a prime example being their refusal to track vehicles in Mexico a prime destination for stolen vehicles across the southern US.

Dave's tip for the Day: If you think it might be useful to track your vehicle if it is stolen, or to track the murderers of a loved one, contact me or any other legitimate independent dealer of commercial GPS systems. There are much better implementations of technology out there and companies that will better represent the customer.

US taxpayers pay for the infrastructure (GPS) that supports this technology, don't give away your control to companies who try to deny service of what should be an important public asset.