For about 3 years now you have already been able to purchase a device known as Mobile Guardian. It is hidden in the vehicle, much like LoJack, and like Lojack you can also locate the vehicle with it.

The biggest difference is that you don't need police involvement. You can track it anytime you want on your computer. It will also send you an email if the vehicle exceeds a pre-programmed speed, or if it ventures outside of a perimter that you set up.


Lots of companies use it to keep tabs on their drivers, as well as their driver's lunchbreaks.

I like this idea. Data is available if i want to check it, but it's subtle. The kids still make their own choices, but they know I can see what they're up to.

[sniff] 1984

Yes and no. Now, we have electronic devices to rat out our kids. Then, we had friends and neighbors who would rat you out if you were being an idiot. New times, new method. Same result.

D-Rod, my position as the father of three licensed teenagers is this;

Until you turn 21, I have liability for everything you do in the car,

I bought the car(s).
I pay for insurance and gas for the cars.
Even the calif DMV will tell you that driving is a privilege, not a right.

Until you turn 21 and/or move out and pay for your own stuff, you get to live with my rules.

And as so many of your future supervisors will tell you, I will inspect what I expect of you.

Do I trust them? Heck, I was a good kid when I was a teenager and I broke a lot of the rules my parents never found out about. So the answer is no.

This will only be available in NEW vehicles right?

How many of us let their kids drive the family's NEW car around anyway? Or at least on a regular basis?

My son is 17 and I gave him my '01 Ranger to drive around with. It has airbags, is a 4cyl/auto and has 113K on the clock.

And my insurance company rates him the lowest on that vehicle.

If I did have a new car, I wouldn't have him drive it around just because of that new feature...

For the record, i'd GLADLY drive a new Ford equipped with these features. It'd sure beat the 95' Camry I have been driving for 4 years and 70,000 miles (that is still going strong is about to embark on about 2,500 miles in 3 weeks).

And im sorry, this particular feature is 100% marketing. The fastest I have ever driven has NOT been in my car, and infact, it was not in a family vehicle. And it was fast enough i'm NOT mentioning it here and I have to say it was a rather stupid move. So that feature wouldn't have helped me be less stupid....

Might be more helpful in urban environments on freeways, speed data there might be helpful on a daily bases.

Mark, your point misses on several fronts. (and I know you're not taking pot shots at me, so don't worry about me getting my feathers ruffled! )

The difference between me (with 45 years of driving experience and 15 years of emergency vehicle driving) pushing a well designed car through a curve at greater than the speed limit, and a teenager with possibly a few months of driving experience driving too fast does not really need further explanation. And both of those are vastly different from telling your kids to play outside on a nice, sunny day.

My point really was that when we let young drivers take the car by themselves, statistics show they often have accidents that kill themselves, their passengers, or other people. They do not have the experience to know how to handle a car at city speeds, let alone high speeds. They don't know what happens to the dynamics of the car's suspension when you're driving fast, they don't know how to tell when the tires are reaching the limits of adhesion, and they have not learned from experience what are the proper things to do when an emergency situation pops up in front of them.

It's not that kids are inherently bad or stupid, it's simply that they lack the knowledge and experience that helps older adults make better decisions. Personally, I think we should do all we can to help kids live through their "formative years".

[Open gasoline pipeline and pour fuel onto fire]

In theory, younger drivers are BETTER equipped to handle sensitive situations directly dependent on instantaneous reaction time. The younger you are, the faster your reaction time and greater control you have over the body.

Secondly, it doesn't much matter if you're a teen, young adult, seasoned adult, or elderly person, if you're pushing any vehicle to the extreme and you experience mechanical failure, you're flat out screwed.

It's my opinion, a LOT of the things GFC references in his last thread are not related to extreme driving. This thread, or the technology discussed, is directed toward extreme driving. This does NOT include basic skills such as what to do with a flat, etc.

Also, such technology would also be good for elderly people. Quite frankly, I find those drivers to be 5x more scary than younger teen drivers.

Finally, this technology is not new to vehicles, it's just new to personal automobile industry. All of KU's buses are equipped with g-force monitoring sensors that kick on a camera pointed over the driver's head when certain parameters are met. When the bus arrives in the yard, this data/video is wireless downloaded to a computer for review by supervisors. All buses are also constantly tracked with GPS data monitoring speeds, location and paths. This data is uploaded realtime via cellular data network. Just adapting these existing technologies into personal automobiles would not be difficult.

I really don't see a lot of use for the speed limiting. If you limit it at 65mph but most of the driving is done around town it does no good in a school zone or in a 35 mph speed limit. And around here, as I am sure with most interstates, going 65mph (the speed limit) will get you run over by semis. I hate for my kid to have an accident on the interstate because she couldn't get out of the way.

I think I like the idea of GPS monitoring though.

Anyone have a link to the computer monitored GPS system?

I believe Ford has a good idea and they should or at least someone should take it a bit farther and it could be a great idea...
Top speed limiters and engine power govenors will only put a band aid on some of the vehiles that are equipped with them...
And what happens when the kids get behind the wheel of a car that does not have the system or maybe the system is turned off...
Why can't a system be linked through existing gps,, drive by wire throttle controls and or remote alarm systems,,...

I realize it's not this easy but here goes,,, We already have technolige from gps to tell the unit where it is and how fast it is traveling,, most of them can calcuate time to a destination,, so with that the general speed limit for a given travel route must be factored in... The gps knows how long it should take..
Cars are more and more becoming drive by wire and at least cruise control is becoming standard equipment... point being that throttle operation can be electronically controlled or govenored... The gps knows where you are and the speed limits of that given road,, It should be able to restrict the vehicles speed through any number of already existing throttle control systems...

We also have signs on almost every road letting us know how fast we can go,, there should be a signal transmitted from them automatically telling the gps or throttle control system what the speed limit for that given part of road is...

E-Z pass systems only need a split mill-a-second to decide how much you should pay when using toll roads or airport parking...

I believe that technoligies are almost there and the proper ways to link them should be out there somewhere...

D-Rod, if the reaction time of young adults was all that you tout it as being, there would not be such a high percentage of dead teenage drivers. Nothing is absolute, but parents want any tools they can use to protect their children. My personal wish is to have all cars equiped with non-intrusive device that can tell when a driver is impaired.

SeaDog pretty much nailed it. The statistics point in a different direction from what you suggest Derek. The problem is that teen drivers, while their reaction times are very good, the WAY they react is very poor due to their limited exposure to emergency situations. The most common reaction among drivers of all ages is to slam on the brakes when something happens in front of them.

That is often the worst thing to do because (even with ABS) your ability to steer the car/truck out of harm's way is seriously jeopardized. Once the decision to slam on the brakes has been made their focus is on that and they fail to consider other options such as steering around the hazard. Another problem with the lack of experience is that inexperienced drivers fail to recognize a hazardous situation until they are in it. The have not yet learned the defensive driving skills that come from experience so they don't recognize a potential hazard in time to avoid getting into the situation where they need to do an emergency maneuver to avoid it.

Extreme driving situations do not always involve high speed. Most traffic accidents happen in city traffic at relatively low speeds. For example, someone runs a light and hits or gets hit by a car on a cross street. Those accidents are almost always avoidable. Drivers in a situation like that tend to hit the brakes rather than steer around the danger.

For the record, my comments about inexperienced drivers apply not only to teenage drivers. An older person who lives in an area where there are mainly small towns and light traffic may not have developed the skills to become a good defensive driver. In that scenario, a newly educated teen driver may be a better driver than the older person.

My thing is, if you can't trust your child with the keys, why are you giving them to them anyway?