Hmmm, didn't much like that headline, did you? Given the socioeconomic strata and the average political leanings of most prolific blog readers, we don't have a lot of rabid hawks here. Ever notice how Michael Moore couldn't even get an answer out of most of our esteemed legislators when he asked them why _their_ kids weren't in the war they delight in sending others to?
Well, let's not get too deep into politics. Read this and then come back to see me, 'k?
http://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/news/local/states/south_carolina/counties/york/12736335.htm
Parents, we are doing a DAMN poor job of raising our teens ... especially boys ...when it comes to automobiles and driving. We can't do anything about wars, natural disasters or disease but we can do a LOT when it comes to keeping them safe on the road. The cost ranges from zero dollars to small investments, less than you probably spend in expensive designer sneakers and ripped up jeans that the kid just 'as to have'.
But there is a cost ... it's not in money, it's in responsibility. You have got to have the guts to say No when a no is needed. You have got so spend time actual trying to teach skills rather than marking time until the state issues them a license. You've learned a lot over the past 20 years of driving, how much are you passing on (including the embarrassing incidents you learned from the hard way?)
Commercial driving schools can be good, but often a trusted friend with a good head on his or her shoulders can do a lot to help as well. trade off instruction and check rides with a neighbor's son or daughter. It's very surprising how little interaction any teen has with adults aside from his/her parents. You'd be amazed how much a friend's son or daughter will value your opinion as well.
Think about monitoring your teen's destinations and driving habits. This is the number one way you can keep them alive. Is there a cost? Yup ... but what's the cost of a funeral ... or lifetime of rehab in a spinal cord injury hospital? Put a GPS unit on their vehicle. If you're serious about wanting to keep them alive, and you have the gumption to actually _be_ responsible for their behavior, use GPS unit that monitors their seatbelt use. Yes, there are ones out there (disclaimer, I sell one brand that does, there are others) and yes they do save lives. The statistic in the article I recommended that bothers me most? The distressingly small number of teens who wear seat belts. No matter what our age or driving skills we can make a mistake ... it's part of being human. A simple piece of nylon webbing can make the difference between a scare or a fender-bender and a lifetime of tradgedy.
Make it click, no matter what else you do.
26 September 2005
22 September 2005
Make $500 a Day Extra With Exisiting Assets?
Small business tracks savings with cheap high tech
http://www.globetechnology.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20050922.wxtracks0922/BNStory/Technology/
Make an extra $500 a day? Sure, sounds good, doesn’t it? However, you’d be surprised how many small business owners can’t see the forest for the trees.
Here’s a nice article about a small, family-owned business who were able to do simple math. Instead of sending trucks and drivers out to visually see if the bins they needed to haul were full … and letting the trucks drift elsewhere if it wasn’t time for a pickup yet _at_$75_per_hours_!, they invested in low cost technology that costs about a dollar a day per truck.
No matter what the size of the business, saving $75 a day (or more) for a dollar a day is a no brainer, but sadly many business men think that the object of their business is only to spend nothing. Clue: you can save 100% of your business cost by just going out of business, but I don’t think that’s the most desirable way to proceed.
Wise investments can really pay off in real dollar terms, not to mention the fact that this form is now a recognizable leader in their field … that’s certainly worth something in intangible bucks.
The trucking industry is really challenged by fuel prices, environmental rules, hours of service regulations and a host of other challenges. The way to cope is to figure out ways to improve the bottom line within the scope of existing problems.. you can’t make $1 a gallon fuel come back no matter how hard you wish.
Move cautiously, demand proof, compare systems and service, but do _something_ … and for the trucking industry that _something_ is tracking your assets … no one who ever made a well-researched decision has lost money yet and the future just seems to be wide open for expanding profits as well.
It’s often been said that one makes their own luck … work on improving yours today.
http://www.globetechnology.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20050922.wxtracks0922/BNStory/Technology/
Make an extra $500 a day? Sure, sounds good, doesn’t it? However, you’d be surprised how many small business owners can’t see the forest for the trees.
Here’s a nice article about a small, family-owned business who were able to do simple math. Instead of sending trucks and drivers out to visually see if the bins they needed to haul were full … and letting the trucks drift elsewhere if it wasn’t time for a pickup yet _at_$75_per_hours_!, they invested in low cost technology that costs about a dollar a day per truck.
No matter what the size of the business, saving $75 a day (or more) for a dollar a day is a no brainer, but sadly many business men think that the object of their business is only to spend nothing. Clue: you can save 100% of your business cost by just going out of business, but I don’t think that’s the most desirable way to proceed.
Wise investments can really pay off in real dollar terms, not to mention the fact that this form is now a recognizable leader in their field … that’s certainly worth something in intangible bucks.
The trucking industry is really challenged by fuel prices, environmental rules, hours of service regulations and a host of other challenges. The way to cope is to figure out ways to improve the bottom line within the scope of existing problems.. you can’t make $1 a gallon fuel come back no matter how hard you wish.
Move cautiously, demand proof, compare systems and service, but do _something_ … and for the trucking industry that _something_ is tracking your assets … no one who ever made a well-researched decision has lost money yet and the future just seems to be wide open for expanding profits as well.
It’s often been said that one makes their own luck … work on improving yours today.
19 September 2005
Businesses in the Fuel Price Crunch
Businesses in the Fuel Price Crunch
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/business/local/sfl-ybpower19sep19,0,7930131.story?page=1&coll=sfla-business-headlines
An interesting article this morning. In the aftermath of Katrina it seems the media, large and small markets; are spending their time reporting Chertnof's and Nagin's posturings or Bush's latest flyover ... if Rita hits the US, Bush has his staff on full alert so he can fly over and look for rich Republican's mansions to rebuild at least one day earlier than his dismal (except for Trent Lott) showing after Katrina.
Anyway, back to business. The thread that interweaves through the whole news article on small Florida businesses being slammed by gas prices is intelligent use of technology. from making sure take home trucks just go back and forth to home to optimizing routing (hate to tell you this but US Zip codes are not arranged in any intelligent geographic order, they are arranged to minimize the distance from post office to mail customer ... unless your business is to deliver envelopes 6 days a week to everyone along certain streets, optimizing routes via zip codes is like guessing if Rita is going to keep on through the Straits of Florida as the map shows, or if she might veer off and perhaps give Chertnof and the TSA Jackboots another chance to see how badly they can screw up again this season.
The lest important way I see technology saving these small businesses is in direct savings resulting from monitoring speeding and cowboy driving. Many business owners want to keep their head in the sand, but it happens, every day, and it happens big time.
Buy GPS tracking from me, buy it from one of my competitors, but do _something_ aside from wringing your hands over fuel prices. They aren't going down.
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/business/local/sfl-ybpower19sep19,0,7930131.story?page=1&coll=sfla-business-headlines
An interesting article this morning. In the aftermath of Katrina it seems the media, large and small markets; are spending their time reporting Chertnof's and Nagin's posturings or Bush's latest flyover ... if Rita hits the US, Bush has his staff on full alert so he can fly over and look for rich Republican's mansions to rebuild at least one day earlier than his dismal (except for Trent Lott) showing after Katrina.
Anyway, back to business. The thread that interweaves through the whole news article on small Florida businesses being slammed by gas prices is intelligent use of technology. from making sure take home trucks just go back and forth to home to optimizing routing (hate to tell you this but US Zip codes are not arranged in any intelligent geographic order, they are arranged to minimize the distance from post office to mail customer ... unless your business is to deliver envelopes 6 days a week to everyone along certain streets, optimizing routes via zip codes is like guessing if Rita is going to keep on through the Straits of Florida as the map shows, or if she might veer off and perhaps give Chertnof and the TSA Jackboots another chance to see how badly they can screw up again this season.
The lest important way I see technology saving these small businesses is in direct savings resulting from monitoring speeding and cowboy driving. Many business owners want to keep their head in the sand, but it happens, every day, and it happens big time.
Buy GPS tracking from me, buy it from one of my competitors, but do _something_ aside from wringing your hands over fuel prices. They aren't going down.
06 September 2005
How things change in a mere 20 years .. Blasts from the past
Here's a link I couldn't resist:
http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000430055334
Scroll down and look at the TI-4100 GPS receiver. Believe it or not, I was using ones like this in 1985, even though the GPS had only one or two birds in continual operation. My job included keeping a highly classified "Doomsday" radio system on line. Because the receivers had to be autonomous in case of a nation-wide disaster, they had to keep time to very precise standards. If the time got off, the only way to reset it was to carry the radio to one of the master stations to re-synchronize it .. or have a special timing timing technician fly to your location with an atomic clock on the seat beside him .. wow, what the TSA have to say about that LoL. The only way, that is unless you had the magic of GPS. In seconds after the satellite came over, the receiver was synced up and on-line.
So even 20 years ago, GPS was saving time and money for government and civilian agencies. truly a wonder of the 20th and 21st centuries.
Enjoy the rest of the Engadget page above, see what Nokia cell phones used to look like. My current Nokia weighs 11 grams, the 1985 model weighed 11 pounds.
http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000430055334
Scroll down and look at the TI-4100 GPS receiver. Believe it or not, I was using ones like this in 1985, even though the GPS had only one or two birds in continual operation. My job included keeping a highly classified "Doomsday" radio system on line. Because the receivers had to be autonomous in case of a nation-wide disaster, they had to keep time to very precise standards. If the time got off, the only way to reset it was to carry the radio to one of the master stations to re-synchronize it .. or have a special timing timing technician fly to your location with an atomic clock on the seat beside him .. wow, what the TSA have to say about that LoL. The only way, that is unless you had the magic of GPS. In seconds after the satellite came over, the receiver was synced up and on-line.
So even 20 years ago, GPS was saving time and money for government and civilian agencies. truly a wonder of the 20th and 21st centuries.
Enjoy the rest of the Engadget page above, see what Nokia cell phones used to look like. My current Nokia weighs 11 grams, the 1985 model weighed 11 pounds.
Hub school buses get Safer and Cheaper using GPS
Hub school buses to roll despite drivers' GPS gripeBy Kevin RothsteinTuesday, September 6, 2005 - Updated: 09:38 AM EST
http://news.bostonherald.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=101177
Well, school’s back in and here’s some more of the usual misguided griping. The school district is charged with the safety of the students and with the efficient transportation of the kids. The drivers get paid to drive, but instead have been found parked and napping; driving their busses on personal shopping trips and various other acts of unprofessionalism
Does the driver’s union work to make their ranks professional? Oh heck no, they threaten to time up the start of school, fighting to keep management from controlling the drivers and busses that they pay for.
Kudos to the school district management for living up to the responsibility of their positions and refusing to let the tail wag the dog. Boston’s children _and_ Boston’s bus drivers will be safer.
In fairness to the union, they did strike a bargain at the last minute to allow the program to move on with a delay, to be negotiated, in implementing the use of the GPS system to punish drivers for misconduct. This is the implementation plan my company always proposes. There is no need to start out using the GPS as a punishment tool. The very fact that the fleet is being observed causes the majority of drivers who might not be puling their weight to “self correct”.
The one point not brought out in the article is how much of a tool the GPS can be for proving driver’s good work. No unfounded claims about the bus driver being early and standing little Johnny. No lies about the bus speeding through a residential area. Proof of how much the driver did or didn’t idle the engine in restricted areas near schools… the list goes on. A professional driver who cares about doing a good job should never fear GPS. And management, trying to figure out how to stretch a $2 a gallon fuel budget to accommodate $3 dollars and up should, frankly, fear _not_ having a management system.
http://news.bostonherald.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=101177
Well, school’s back in and here’s some more of the usual misguided griping. The school district is charged with the safety of the students and with the efficient transportation of the kids. The drivers get paid to drive, but instead have been found parked and napping; driving their busses on personal shopping trips and various other acts of unprofessionalism
Does the driver’s union work to make their ranks professional? Oh heck no, they threaten to time up the start of school, fighting to keep management from controlling the drivers and busses that they pay for.
Kudos to the school district management for living up to the responsibility of their positions and refusing to let the tail wag the dog. Boston’s children _and_ Boston’s bus drivers will be safer.
In fairness to the union, they did strike a bargain at the last minute to allow the program to move on with a delay, to be negotiated, in implementing the use of the GPS system to punish drivers for misconduct. This is the implementation plan my company always proposes. There is no need to start out using the GPS as a punishment tool. The very fact that the fleet is being observed causes the majority of drivers who might not be puling their weight to “self correct”.
The one point not brought out in the article is how much of a tool the GPS can be for proving driver’s good work. No unfounded claims about the bus driver being early and standing little Johnny. No lies about the bus speeding through a residential area. Proof of how much the driver did or didn’t idle the engine in restricted areas near schools… the list goes on. A professional driver who cares about doing a good job should never fear GPS. And management, trying to figure out how to stretch a $2 a gallon fuel budget to accommodate $3 dollars and up should, frankly, fear _not_ having a management system.
05 September 2005
Handhelds and a Data Base Provide Hidden Value
Sixth formers are to use global positioning systems to show tourists historic sites in a Denbighsire town
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/north_east/4215518.stm
Interesting use of handheld GPS. Not just because it points out a valuable method to popularize and improve history study, but if you read closely, you’ll see that these students have developed an extremely valuable tool for public safety.
How many times have you heard of the expensive and sometimes even tragic cases of law enforcement bursting into the wrong house while serving a warrant and/or trying to make an arrest?
Why wouldn’t every cop be equipped with one of these tools, he or she would know whose house it was and also any legitimate, public record of criminality within.
Almost every fire engine rolls from its station on a call with a “run book” … a list of commercial properties, floor plans, dangerous items, handicapped individuals, etc. How many lives could we save each year if we put the database of public tax records and building plans (always submitted to obtain a building permit) into a simple handeld for fire responders? Our problem is not the technology, or even the costs of digitizing and distributing it. Our problem is our unwillingness to change.
Can you imagine the responders in New Orleans, moving house to house looking for bodies, if they knew instantly in front of whose house they stood and who was supposed to live there? Mind boggling … so what seems to be the hold up … this isn’t rocket science, it’s kid stuff.. well excuse me, not ‘kids’ per se, but college students whose area of expertise is not technical.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/north_east/4215518.stm
Interesting use of handheld GPS. Not just because it points out a valuable method to popularize and improve history study, but if you read closely, you’ll see that these students have developed an extremely valuable tool for public safety.
How many times have you heard of the expensive and sometimes even tragic cases of law enforcement bursting into the wrong house while serving a warrant and/or trying to make an arrest?
Why wouldn’t every cop be equipped with one of these tools, he or she would know whose house it was and also any legitimate, public record of criminality within.
Almost every fire engine rolls from its station on a call with a “run book” … a list of commercial properties, floor plans, dangerous items, handicapped individuals, etc. How many lives could we save each year if we put the database of public tax records and building plans (always submitted to obtain a building permit) into a simple handeld for fire responders? Our problem is not the technology, or even the costs of digitizing and distributing it. Our problem is our unwillingness to change.
Can you imagine the responders in New Orleans, moving house to house looking for bodies, if they knew instantly in front of whose house they stood and who was supposed to live there? Mind boggling … so what seems to be the hold up … this isn’t rocket science, it’s kid stuff.. well excuse me, not ‘kids’ per se, but college students whose area of expertise is not technical.
The Value of Human Life - Why We Should Track Busses
Cause of fatal bus crash unknown
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200509/s1453799.htm
Just wandering through some other news items when I came upon this sad story. Time and time again I have noticed the contrast between the information available to investigators in air crashes versus bus disasters.
One can immediately jump to the conclusion, ‘oh but aircraft are so much more expensive, it’s not costs effective to equip busses with recorders like aircraft.”
Well, it sounds a good argument at first, but the problem is that it’s false. Last time I checked into it, a tourist dead in a bus is just as dead as one in and airplane, and the value of either person is incalculable in human terms … and in liability terms, perhaps hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars.
Simple fleet management recorders that would pay for themselves in business savings could and should be on every bus .. commercial, shuttle, school, etc. Not only would the operators save money, when a tragedy like this occurred, they could find out in seconds if the driver had been violating the law.
What a blessing to those who are charged with keeping roads safer, and, if the driver was faultless, what a relief to him or her .. imagine what it must feel like to be in charge of a fatal accident and be living with the blame and unable to prove what precautions you took?
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200509/s1453799.htm
Just wandering through some other news items when I came upon this sad story. Time and time again I have noticed the contrast between the information available to investigators in air crashes versus bus disasters.
One can immediately jump to the conclusion, ‘oh but aircraft are so much more expensive, it’s not costs effective to equip busses with recorders like aircraft.”
Well, it sounds a good argument at first, but the problem is that it’s false. Last time I checked into it, a tourist dead in a bus is just as dead as one in and airplane, and the value of either person is incalculable in human terms … and in liability terms, perhaps hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars.
Simple fleet management recorders that would pay for themselves in business savings could and should be on every bus .. commercial, shuttle, school, etc. Not only would the operators save money, when a tragedy like this occurred, they could find out in seconds if the driver had been violating the law.
What a blessing to those who are charged with keeping roads safer, and, if the driver was faultless, what a relief to him or her .. imagine what it must feel like to be in charge of a fatal accident and be living with the blame and unable to prove what precautions you took?
03 September 2005
Margueite Saves the Vacation
In amongst all the bad news from Katrina, oil prices, the war in Iraq and especially, all the bad, bad things that are sure to come from the ubiquitous use of GPS, I thought this column was cute:
http://www.startribune.com/stories/1513/5593694.html
Ordinary folk on a nice vacation, made better, faster, cheaper and less contentious by a little assistant called Marguerite. I wonder how many gallons of expensive gas would be saved this Labor Day weekend if everyone had Marguerite along offering her guidance.
http://www.startribune.com/stories/1513/5593694.html
Ordinary folk on a nice vacation, made better, faster, cheaper and less contentious by a little assistant called Marguerite. I wonder how many gallons of expensive gas would be saved this Labor Day weekend if everyone had Marguerite along offering her guidance.
02 September 2005
It's nice to have money, but better shopping would pay
Orbital Awarded $3.5 Million Contract for Vehicle Tracking and Dispatch System by Culver City, California
http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20050902005260&newsLang=enI don't normally comment on the competition, but this press release caught my eye. It's well known that some businesses and government agencies are still avoiding the advantages of GPS tracking due to cost. It's also becoming well known that costs have come down significantly in recent years.
But not for Culver City! Either there's a significant math error in the article, or the city is paying $66000 per bus! for a "smart" transportation management system. This is way out of line for any rational system. Orbital Sciences, the successful vendor, is heavily established in building and launching satellites. At this price, perhaps they are building and launching private satellites just for Culver City?
If you manage busses or are concerned about how bus systems operate and want to see things improved, give me or any other reputable independent consultant/dealer a call. Do your own research. A really nice tracking and fleet management system for transit busses should cost a lot closer to $600 per vehicle (a small bit more, perhaps), but $66000!?! God bless the American free enterprise system, but give me a freakin' break, would you?
01 September 2005
Geoslaves and Yellow Journalism
A long post today, I saw this article released on a press release network and couldn't resist making some corrections and comments. It's sad that a country based on technology has a press corps so berift of understanding of it.. Mu comments in Italics
-------------
Experts fear brave new world of 'geoslaves'
By LANCE GAY Scripps Howard News ServiceSeptember 01, 2005
- To injured mountaineers and lost backpackers, nifty technology using global information systems holds the promise of being a lifesaver.
And America's legal system has found the technology provides ways to punish drunken drivers or nonviolent offenders like Martha Stewart, who are sentenced to home confinement with an ankle bracelet monitoring their whereabouts rather than time in a prison cell costing taxpayers $60,000 a year to operate.
à This is interesting, since I have long been a voice in the wilderness asking how we would pay for tracking all the people we want to track. However $5000 a month seems extraordinary.. do you have a source for this figure?
But academics and lawyers warn there's a real danger to privacy as the technology becomes cheaper and easier to obtain. Developed for military use in the 1970s, global positioning system (GPS) technology is today a $5 billion industry that has gained widespread use in American society without much debate about whether its uses should be limited.
"Human tracking has gone mainstream," said Jerome Dobson, a geography professor at the University of Kansas and past president of the American Geographic Society. He says tracking systems are eroding America's cherished independence and threaten to transform workers into "geoslaves."
"The question I like to use to bring this home is to ask: 'How long would Anne Frank's diary be if she were wearing one of these nifty devices?' " he said.
à A nice quote if the only agreement is that use of tracking is by entities who wish to do harm. I mean, if Eve hasn’t eaten the apple we’d all be still living in Paradise, would we not?
GPS technology used to be an expensive niche product because of the costs of maintaining relay stations that transferred signals from satellites to receivers. But thanks to widespread use of cellular-phone service, the price for a system has dropped to as little as $200.
GPS equipment is an option offered on many new car models today, so drivers can find their way to strange locations. But what many owners don't know is that the equipment can also easily be used to find the driver, and rental-car operators have used their systems to track where customers took their cars.
à An alarmist paragraph that is only partially correct. You are mixing capabilities of different systems. Typical GPS navigation systems that show the vehicle on a map for the driver’s benefit have _no_ ability to transmit location to anyone. Systems such as GM’s OnStar™ do allow the monitoring agency to ‘see’ the vehicle, but this is an option that must be paid for in advance by the owner…hardly a clandestine monitoring system. With respect to rental car companies monitoring vehicle use, they are required to inform users in advance … several court cases have enforced this rather emphatically. Basic property rights come into play here, in opposition at times to expectation of privacy. If you own a car, and you rent it to me, and I abuse the terms of the contract, have you no right to know? If I rented the car and you followed me in another car and observed me, would you be guilty of breaking some law … I doubt it, it’s a free country (or it was before the American Patriot Act). The germ of truth in your paragraph is caveat emptor.
Use a cell phone, and someone can locate where you're talking, thanks to a 1999 federal law that directed cell-phone companies to include GPS identifiers in their machines. Several companies sell tracking devices that can go in a child's backpack or shoe.
à The Enhanced 911 rule you mention does not include any such GPS requirement such as you assert. See the rule here:
http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Wireless/News_Releases/1999/nrwl9016.html
What the rules _do_ require is that carriers be able to locate 911 calls to certain tolerances. Although the FCC has since delayed enforcing these rules, many carriers can and do comply today. However, they comply almost universally by using a technique called cell tower triangulation. The reason this technique is used rather than GPS location is that it works with all cellular phones, not just the miniscule number of GPS phones currently deployed. Again, everyone is entitled to their views regarding commercial companies or the authorities being able to know the approximate locations of every call made, but GPS is not the issue and were the GPS system turned off tomorrow the location ability would not be significantly affected.
In hopes of controlling traffic on the jammed and gridlocked highways, and avoiding collisions, the U.S. Department of Transportation is working on "intelligent design" highways that will link traffic control to wireless-controlled systems to be installed in cars by the next decade. But the same systems could easily measure your speed, and mail you a speeding ticket if you violate the law.
Dobson concedes that Americans are adopting these systems because the technology provides an advantage, and he stresses he's not opposed to the equipment. But he said Americans need to debate what limits to place on global positioning systems and develop safeguards for dangers to freedom they pose.
Those same difficult-to-remove tracking systems strapped on the wrists of Alzheimer's victims to locate those who wander away also can be used to track and control you, he notes. After the horrific Elizabeth Smart and Shasta Groene kidnappings, some parents looked to fitting their kids with tracking devices. But the same devices could just as readily be purchased by predators and put to use keeping kidnapped victims imprisoned (by telling the predators the exact whereabouts of the children).
à Come, come now, this is a bit far fetched, isn’t it? The criminal puts a bracelet on the child and orders the victim not to move and then leaves the area. The victim disobeys the captor and the captor than, by some science fiction means simultaneously tracks the child via the internet and pursues and recaptured? Pulp fiction .. a piece of rope would be a much more effective captivity monitor and has no batteries to run down.
Jeremy Gruber, legal director of the National Workrights Institute, says GPS is a powerful technology that permits the sort of electronic monitoring of mobile workers that has become widespread in factories and offices in the last 15 years.
Gruber said employers can now monitor the minute-to-minute whereabouts of salesmen and other on-road employees, even when they are not working.
"The type of personal information they can gather is virtually unlimited," he said, pointing out that employers can determine if their workers are going to the doctor or attending political rallies. There are currently no legal restrictions on what employers can do with the information they collect, and no requirement that employers inform employees that they are being monitored.
"This is an extreme gray area" that hasn't been addressed by the courts or legislatures, he said.
à I certainly agree with the issue that rules regarding collecting and safeguarding data should be more clearly defined. However, what part of employment guarantees such perquisites as visits to the doctor on company time? When an employer pays an employee is there not an expectation of a day’s work for a day’s pay? I’ve installed many vehicle tracking units for commercial and government clients. So far the results are 100%, that’s right; each and every installation has had significant time accounting problems. Employees certifying they left home at one hour, but actually leaving 45 minutes later … boss paid for breakfast. An employee who spent the last hour of every day before returning to the warehouse at the hospital, visiting a sick relative. The employer should pay for these abuses, or the employees are somehow entitled to just steal? A government agency found an employee who took several afternoons a week to stop and play 9 holes of gold before returning to the office. Did the taxpayers have aright to expect a day’s work from this individual or was it a violation of his “privacy”? A bank robber wishes for privacy while making his escape, but is he entitled to it?
Then-Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., pushed legislation requiring companies collecting GPS data to inform customers of their activities, but the measure languished in the Senate Commerce Committee without action.
State and local governments say GPS systems put on public vehicles have increased the effectiveness of operations. After Charlotte, N.C., installed such technology on its ambulance system, the local government reported a 10 percent faster response time because ambulances could be guided around roadblocks and traffic. Many northern states use GPS systems to guide snowplows through snow-obscured streets.
One New Jersey police department secretly installed the system on police cars and fired five policemen who were loitering over meals or in parking lots when they wrote in their logbooks that they were patrolling the streets.
à Exactly replicating my real-world experiences. Were these cop’s rights violated? Or, were they giving their employer .. us tax payers .. bad value for wages received?
The systems are widely used in the trucking industry. Employers used to rely on odometers strapped to the truck's axel to tell them how far the truck traveled. But GPS technology provides much more information, giving companies not only information on the truck's specific location, but the direction it is heading, its speed and information on whether the worker is taking a break or working.
à indeed, taking a break is one of the things drivers and ultimately their employers are responsible for. The safety record of trucking is as good as it is strictly because the Federal Highway Safety Administration and other government agencies require adherence to federal Hours OF Service rules to prevent fatigue-caused accidents and prevent the exploitation of drivers. It seems to me that in this case a good argument might be made that, in addition to being a business profit tool for drivers as well as owners, GPS tracking is a viable safety asset.. let me tell you a true story from a driver friend of mine. Like the majority of long-haul drivers, his income depends directly upon loaded miles driven. Before his company gave him the free profit incentive of a GPS tracking system in his truck, he had to stop several times a day, stand in line for a pay phone, wait for a dispatcher to be free to speak with him and then, perhaps, find out that he had passed up a load an hour or so back .. already given to another driver farther away than he was at the time the load became available. Now that he has GPS tracking and in-cab communication, he drives more legal hours per day and learns of loads ready for pickup the instant they are ready. He can contract for the load with the push of a button. GPS in the cab raised his personal income 25%!. Some kind of geoslave, perhaps, but a happy one.
William Herbert, senior counsel for the Civil Service Employees Union in Albany, N.Y., is troubled that the technology is giving employers too much information.
"This infringes, to some degree, on their autonomy," said Herbert. He also worries the location systems could also be used to track employees heading off to union halls, or engaged in other union activities that employers are prohibited from monitoring under federal labor laws.
à I have a little problem with employee “autonomy”. Are employees hired to do a job and paid a wage for it, or are they responsible to take money and do as they wish? Far be it from me to argue law with an attorney, but the way the comment is attributed to Mr. Herbert may be inaccurate. Employees of a union shop most certainly have the right to visit their union headquarters but there is _no_ Federal law that allows this on company time, or that compels the employer to pay them for that time. I was a union employee for years and one of the reasons I left the union was that a few of my fellow employees who held positions of trust in the union would sign out from work to do “union business” and go to bars or take naps. My employer did not pay them for that time … the union local, via the dues deducted from my paycheck did. Employers have the right to now that their employees are on the job when their employees are being paid. Period.
Herbert told a recent American Bar Association conference that the nation's labor laws need to be updated to deal with the technology, and urged the National Labor Relations Board to issue directions on how the technologies can be used.
Herbert said he's not opposed to using new technologies, but noted that other countries and the European Union recognize the privacy issues surrounding the wider use of GPS and are concerned enough to draft regulations to keep its use contained.
The NRLB has left concerns about the systems to unions to sort out with management. In its new national contract with the trucking industry, the Teamsters this year won agreement that information gathered through "black boxes" installed on trucks cannot be used to punish truckers.
à Indeed this sounds a worthy cause. What about the other side of the coin. Last year a trucker involved in an accident was arrested and spent nearly 6 months in jail before a laboratory extracted the data from the archaic “black box” in the vehicle and proved the charges made by the police were false. Not long ago a client of my company had a driver involved in an accident in which a vehicle pulled out in front of my client’s vehicle and was struck. The police charged my client’s driver with speeding, based on their on-scene investigation. (and, perhaps, because he had the name of a nation-wide corporation on his truck??) In less than a day, my client extracted the information form the on board GPS business system which showed beyond the shadow of a doubt that the police estimate of my client’s speed was at least 20 miles per hour too high. When the prosecutor was shown the GPS records, he called in the police chief and the ticket as voided and no charges were filed. Were these drivers geoslaves?
-------------
Experts fear brave new world of 'geoslaves'
By LANCE GAY Scripps Howard News ServiceSeptember 01, 2005
- To injured mountaineers and lost backpackers, nifty technology using global information systems holds the promise of being a lifesaver.
And America's legal system has found the technology provides ways to punish drunken drivers or nonviolent offenders like Martha Stewart, who are sentenced to home confinement with an ankle bracelet monitoring their whereabouts rather than time in a prison cell costing taxpayers $60,000 a year to operate.
à This is interesting, since I have long been a voice in the wilderness asking how we would pay for tracking all the people we want to track. However $5000 a month seems extraordinary.. do you have a source for this figure?
But academics and lawyers warn there's a real danger to privacy as the technology becomes cheaper and easier to obtain. Developed for military use in the 1970s, global positioning system (GPS) technology is today a $5 billion industry that has gained widespread use in American society without much debate about whether its uses should be limited.
"Human tracking has gone mainstream," said Jerome Dobson, a geography professor at the University of Kansas and past president of the American Geographic Society. He says tracking systems are eroding America's cherished independence and threaten to transform workers into "geoslaves."
"The question I like to use to bring this home is to ask: 'How long would Anne Frank's diary be if she were wearing one of these nifty devices?' " he said.
à A nice quote if the only agreement is that use of tracking is by entities who wish to do harm. I mean, if Eve hasn’t eaten the apple we’d all be still living in Paradise, would we not?
GPS technology used to be an expensive niche product because of the costs of maintaining relay stations that transferred signals from satellites to receivers. But thanks to widespread use of cellular-phone service, the price for a system has dropped to as little as $200.
GPS equipment is an option offered on many new car models today, so drivers can find their way to strange locations. But what many owners don't know is that the equipment can also easily be used to find the driver, and rental-car operators have used their systems to track where customers took their cars.
à An alarmist paragraph that is only partially correct. You are mixing capabilities of different systems. Typical GPS navigation systems that show the vehicle on a map for the driver’s benefit have _no_ ability to transmit location to anyone. Systems such as GM’s OnStar™ do allow the monitoring agency to ‘see’ the vehicle, but this is an option that must be paid for in advance by the owner…hardly a clandestine monitoring system. With respect to rental car companies monitoring vehicle use, they are required to inform users in advance … several court cases have enforced this rather emphatically. Basic property rights come into play here, in opposition at times to expectation of privacy. If you own a car, and you rent it to me, and I abuse the terms of the contract, have you no right to know? If I rented the car and you followed me in another car and observed me, would you be guilty of breaking some law … I doubt it, it’s a free country (or it was before the American Patriot Act). The germ of truth in your paragraph is caveat emptor.
Use a cell phone, and someone can locate where you're talking, thanks to a 1999 federal law that directed cell-phone companies to include GPS identifiers in their machines. Several companies sell tracking devices that can go in a child's backpack or shoe.
à The Enhanced 911 rule you mention does not include any such GPS requirement such as you assert. See the rule here:
http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Wireless/News_Releases/1999/nrwl9016.html
What the rules _do_ require is that carriers be able to locate 911 calls to certain tolerances. Although the FCC has since delayed enforcing these rules, many carriers can and do comply today. However, they comply almost universally by using a technique called cell tower triangulation. The reason this technique is used rather than GPS location is that it works with all cellular phones, not just the miniscule number of GPS phones currently deployed. Again, everyone is entitled to their views regarding commercial companies or the authorities being able to know the approximate locations of every call made, but GPS is not the issue and were the GPS system turned off tomorrow the location ability would not be significantly affected.
In hopes of controlling traffic on the jammed and gridlocked highways, and avoiding collisions, the U.S. Department of Transportation is working on "intelligent design" highways that will link traffic control to wireless-controlled systems to be installed in cars by the next decade. But the same systems could easily measure your speed, and mail you a speeding ticket if you violate the law.
Dobson concedes that Americans are adopting these systems because the technology provides an advantage, and he stresses he's not opposed to the equipment. But he said Americans need to debate what limits to place on global positioning systems and develop safeguards for dangers to freedom they pose.
Those same difficult-to-remove tracking systems strapped on the wrists of Alzheimer's victims to locate those who wander away also can be used to track and control you, he notes. After the horrific Elizabeth Smart and Shasta Groene kidnappings, some parents looked to fitting their kids with tracking devices. But the same devices could just as readily be purchased by predators and put to use keeping kidnapped victims imprisoned (by telling the predators the exact whereabouts of the children).
à Come, come now, this is a bit far fetched, isn’t it? The criminal puts a bracelet on the child and orders the victim not to move and then leaves the area. The victim disobeys the captor and the captor than, by some science fiction means simultaneously tracks the child via the internet and pursues and recaptured? Pulp fiction .. a piece of rope would be a much more effective captivity monitor and has no batteries to run down.
Jeremy Gruber, legal director of the National Workrights Institute, says GPS is a powerful technology that permits the sort of electronic monitoring of mobile workers that has become widespread in factories and offices in the last 15 years.
Gruber said employers can now monitor the minute-to-minute whereabouts of salesmen and other on-road employees, even when they are not working.
"The type of personal information they can gather is virtually unlimited," he said, pointing out that employers can determine if their workers are going to the doctor or attending political rallies. There are currently no legal restrictions on what employers can do with the information they collect, and no requirement that employers inform employees that they are being monitored.
"This is an extreme gray area" that hasn't been addressed by the courts or legislatures, he said.
à I certainly agree with the issue that rules regarding collecting and safeguarding data should be more clearly defined. However, what part of employment guarantees such perquisites as visits to the doctor on company time? When an employer pays an employee is there not an expectation of a day’s work for a day’s pay? I’ve installed many vehicle tracking units for commercial and government clients. So far the results are 100%, that’s right; each and every installation has had significant time accounting problems. Employees certifying they left home at one hour, but actually leaving 45 minutes later … boss paid for breakfast. An employee who spent the last hour of every day before returning to the warehouse at the hospital, visiting a sick relative. The employer should pay for these abuses, or the employees are somehow entitled to just steal? A government agency found an employee who took several afternoons a week to stop and play 9 holes of gold before returning to the office. Did the taxpayers have aright to expect a day’s work from this individual or was it a violation of his “privacy”? A bank robber wishes for privacy while making his escape, but is he entitled to it?
Then-Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., pushed legislation requiring companies collecting GPS data to inform customers of their activities, but the measure languished in the Senate Commerce Committee without action.
State and local governments say GPS systems put on public vehicles have increased the effectiveness of operations. After Charlotte, N.C., installed such technology on its ambulance system, the local government reported a 10 percent faster response time because ambulances could be guided around roadblocks and traffic. Many northern states use GPS systems to guide snowplows through snow-obscured streets.
One New Jersey police department secretly installed the system on police cars and fired five policemen who were loitering over meals or in parking lots when they wrote in their logbooks that they were patrolling the streets.
à Exactly replicating my real-world experiences. Were these cop’s rights violated? Or, were they giving their employer .. us tax payers .. bad value for wages received?
The systems are widely used in the trucking industry. Employers used to rely on odometers strapped to the truck's axel to tell them how far the truck traveled. But GPS technology provides much more information, giving companies not only information on the truck's specific location, but the direction it is heading, its speed and information on whether the worker is taking a break or working.
à indeed, taking a break is one of the things drivers and ultimately their employers are responsible for. The safety record of trucking is as good as it is strictly because the Federal Highway Safety Administration and other government agencies require adherence to federal Hours OF Service rules to prevent fatigue-caused accidents and prevent the exploitation of drivers. It seems to me that in this case a good argument might be made that, in addition to being a business profit tool for drivers as well as owners, GPS tracking is a viable safety asset.. let me tell you a true story from a driver friend of mine. Like the majority of long-haul drivers, his income depends directly upon loaded miles driven. Before his company gave him the free profit incentive of a GPS tracking system in his truck, he had to stop several times a day, stand in line for a pay phone, wait for a dispatcher to be free to speak with him and then, perhaps, find out that he had passed up a load an hour or so back .. already given to another driver farther away than he was at the time the load became available. Now that he has GPS tracking and in-cab communication, he drives more legal hours per day and learns of loads ready for pickup the instant they are ready. He can contract for the load with the push of a button. GPS in the cab raised his personal income 25%!. Some kind of geoslave, perhaps, but a happy one.
William Herbert, senior counsel for the Civil Service Employees Union in Albany, N.Y., is troubled that the technology is giving employers too much information.
"This infringes, to some degree, on their autonomy," said Herbert. He also worries the location systems could also be used to track employees heading off to union halls, or engaged in other union activities that employers are prohibited from monitoring under federal labor laws.
à I have a little problem with employee “autonomy”. Are employees hired to do a job and paid a wage for it, or are they responsible to take money and do as they wish? Far be it from me to argue law with an attorney, but the way the comment is attributed to Mr. Herbert may be inaccurate. Employees of a union shop most certainly have the right to visit their union headquarters but there is _no_ Federal law that allows this on company time, or that compels the employer to pay them for that time. I was a union employee for years and one of the reasons I left the union was that a few of my fellow employees who held positions of trust in the union would sign out from work to do “union business” and go to bars or take naps. My employer did not pay them for that time … the union local, via the dues deducted from my paycheck did. Employers have the right to now that their employees are on the job when their employees are being paid. Period.
Herbert told a recent American Bar Association conference that the nation's labor laws need to be updated to deal with the technology, and urged the National Labor Relations Board to issue directions on how the technologies can be used.
Herbert said he's not opposed to using new technologies, but noted that other countries and the European Union recognize the privacy issues surrounding the wider use of GPS and are concerned enough to draft regulations to keep its use contained.
The NRLB has left concerns about the systems to unions to sort out with management. In its new national contract with the trucking industry, the Teamsters this year won agreement that information gathered through "black boxes" installed on trucks cannot be used to punish truckers.
à Indeed this sounds a worthy cause. What about the other side of the coin. Last year a trucker involved in an accident was arrested and spent nearly 6 months in jail before a laboratory extracted the data from the archaic “black box” in the vehicle and proved the charges made by the police were false. Not long ago a client of my company had a driver involved in an accident in which a vehicle pulled out in front of my client’s vehicle and was struck. The police charged my client’s driver with speeding, based on their on-scene investigation. (and, perhaps, because he had the name of a nation-wide corporation on his truck??) In less than a day, my client extracted the information form the on board GPS business system which showed beyond the shadow of a doubt that the police estimate of my client’s speed was at least 20 miles per hour too high. When the prosecutor was shown the GPS records, he called in the police chief and the ticket as voided and no charges were filed. Were these drivers geoslaves?
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