The story is titled “The Scariest Milestone”, which is written by a popular author named Harlan Coben.  The story is about his personal experience with his teenage driver.  His ability to put the white-knuckle experiences into humors imagery is great but his conclusion has a strong message.

“Like it or not, children learn by watching their parents.” 

When it comes to making our young drivers safe and better drivers, there is no one educational class or technology device that can guarantee their safety; its experience behind the wheel.  Yes, a GPS tracking solution is a great tool for monitoring their achievements when you are not in the car with them but remember; when you are driving, they are watching you.

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1. Lock your car door. It seems simple, yet many auto thefts occur when a car has been left unlocked. Making the job more difficult for the thief is sometimes all that is needed as a deterrent.

2. Don’t leave valuables in a visible area. Keep in mind that what you think isn’t valuable may be valuable to someone else. If you don’t encourage them to break into your car then you are better off. This includes concealing expensive stereo equipment and other high tech items when possible.

3. Installing a faux alarm. If an auto thief thinks you have an alarm they are less likely to go forward for fear that they may draw attention to themselves. This can be an inexpensive purchase and you can avoid all the middle of the night car alarm mishaps and the unhappy neighbors that accompany that.

4. Install an actual alarm. People who are committing a crime do not want to draw attention to themselves which is why car alarms work.

5. If you can’t prevent it, track it down. Adding a GPS tracking unit to your vehicle allows you and the proper authorities to locate your vehicle quickly and increase chances of recovery without damage. Also, come insurance companies are now offering discounts for having this security measure. Contact your local auto insurance company to find out if they provide this reduction.

Now this may seem like a straightforward argument between ‘passive’ and ‘active’ tracking technologies but I can’t shake off the thought a parent would pass off their responsibility for monitoring their child on to complete strangers.

Then there is the scarlet letter factor of telling the world there is a minor driving the vehicle. Please, not in today’s world with so many unstable and unpredictable people among us.

Even if it’s not financially feasible for a family to consider a real-time, active tracking solution, don’t place any identification labels on the vehicle. A real-time, active tracking service is a secure web site that prohibits unauthorized individuals from following your family.

Don’t leave it up to strangers when it comes to your child’s driving, there are services that provide parents with tools when it comes to monitoring your child’s driving habits.

For sometime, many cellular phone carriers have been busy working on a tracking service for their users to subscribe that would provide them the location of family cell phones. But in parallel to this concept, a new type of tracking solution has recently become available that utilizes the OBDII port of a 1996 or newer vehicle.

While each GPS tracking device provides the same minimal location-based information such as time, location, speed and direction, each type have their advantages when it comes to the added value of their implementation.

Having a GPS cell handset on a family member does provide better location of the physical family member then a GPS device attached to the family car but can you remember how many times you forgot to charge your cell phone or simple misplaced it? The possibility of not having it available would be a concern when trying to use a cell phone.

The GPS OBDII device’s gain is providing information about the behavior of a family member driving such as aggressive acceleration, excessive braking and revving the engine to indicate possible racing the family car. These thresholds can trigger an immediate alert to a parent.

When it comes to using the aid of a GPS tracking device to monitor a teen driver, there are more benefits to using the new GPS OBDII tracking type that out performs the GPS cell phones method when it comes to proving parents with critical information about their teenager’s driving habits.