GPS Tracking ROI

Here’s an excerpt from as recent FMCSA report:

Technology — specifically GPS and wireless communication — can increase HazMat safety and security. However, the cost-benefit ratio is the subject of ongoing government discussions and regulatory studies. In the United States, Federal hazardous materials transportation law (49 U.S.C. 5101) directs the Secretary of Transportation to establish regulations for the safe and secure transportation of hazardous materials in commerce. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) is working to improve truck and bus safety and to reduce HazMat security risks that could harm the public and environment.  Full Report is Here

Now of course as taxpayers we all pay for these kind of reports, so by all means take the time to read it all if you’re interested.  To my view it can all be summed up this way:

And this way:

Now I’m not a Harvard MBA or even anything close, but I think that most anyone with the brains to run a lemonade stand on a 110 degree day can figure out that the benefits (read profits) far, far outweigh the costs of GPS tracking systems.  Actually, you don’t have to trust government charts.  Qualcomm, the “big frog” in the GPS tracking market has probably the priciest units and the most costly monthly plans.  I don’t even recommend them to folks, the technology is old-fashioned and they operate with what is (in my opinion, of course) a very shaky satellite system …. BUT … they have well over 400,000 subscribers and their growth has been steady over the past few years.  400,000 hard-headed trucking executives can’t be wrong.

So track your trucks with the market leader, track your tucks with a newer, better, faster, cheaper product, but get off your duff and track them.  The nation will be safer, your business will be more efficient and your wallet will be fatter.

One thing Americans seem pretty deficient at is history.  We produce our share of world-class scientists but our institutions of higher learning (in my view at least) allow far too high a degree of specialization in graduating our masters and PhD graduates.

A number of Internet sites have picked up on the “latest hot GPS” news regarding at best an educated guess about dire consequences for the GPS during the next predicted solar maximum (solarmax) which will probably happen around the year 2013.  Here’s a sample: http://tinyurl.com/rk9bc

A grad student “discovered” an inconsistency in his GPS receiver readings and has possibly correlated this with a solar flare tat occurred at the time.  Well, ummm, hello, solar flares have been disrupting radio communication since the days of Marconi.  A GPS receiver is just a radio reception device.  The solar maximum phenomena occurs approximately every 11 years (next one is due ore in 1023 than 2011, but that’s like betting on a horse race, anyway).  GPS was in wide use during the last solar maximum (April 2001) and no airliners fell out the sky and no oil tankers ran aground.  In the last but one solar max (1989) a very disruptive power grid outage in the US/Canadian Northeast was blamed by some on solar flares … but of course we’ve had bigger disruptions in years since that couldn’t be blamed on a rouge sun.

I’m not for a moment suggesting we ignore such research but I think we ought to learn:

1. A little bit of history, remembering perhaps

1. The Y2K non-event that was going to destroy the power grid, bankrupt the world of electronic commerce, etc., etc.
2. The “potentially earth-shaking” great GPS clock rollover affair of 21-22 August 1999 (careful, the clocks will all roll over again in 2018)

This whole report reminds me of the sick jokes about spiraling Bonanzas and medical doctors.  Having expertise in one area does not translate to expertise in another area.  And I wish our news media would figure this fact out for themselves.

By the way, has anyone considered that on December 31st 9999, even though the US will still be losing in Iraq and the TSA will still be trying to decide if tubes of lipstick are weapons of mass destruction, the world of computers will suffer an event of truly unprecedented proportions?  Every single program written around the model of the four digit year will probably blow up as the date changes to either 1 January 10,000 or 1 January 0000, (depending upon where you earned your PhD).  I’m thinking of starting a Y10K consultancy, it’s never too early to get a head start on disaster.  Any unmarked cash investors?

Kamloops Mounties nab newly released sex offender

Violent criminal spotted in Ashcroft after allegedly breaking curfew

Ethan Baron, The Province

Published: Thursday, August 31, 2006

A high-risk sex offender led police on a long, high-speed chase after he allegedly broke his curfew in Cache Creek and was then spotted in Kamloops.

Police issued a warning last weekend about Jeffrey Michael Gates, 48, after he was released from jail.

Gates, who has a history of sex offences against women and girls going back to 1987, had served six months for stealing booze from a beer-and-wine store in Cache Creek.

On Tuesday, an Ashcroft Mountie made a 9 p.m. spot check on the Cache Creek house where Gates was living under a 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew and found him absent.  Read full article here:

As you know I’ve posted about the value of GPS tracking devices for sex offenders many time here.  And when I talk about value, I don’t only mean the prevention of future crimes … although that’s a big consideration.  I’m talking about the actual dollars and cents of savings to law enforcement in keeping track of these creepy guys.

Now you’ll have to read this story for yourself to figure out why a guy so violent and convicted of so many previous sex crimes was released after serving time on some sort of minor liquor purchase offence.  I don’t know Canadian law that well and maybe there were circumstances that made it impossible for the prosecutor to nail this weasel on a charge that would have kept him in the pen for the time he deserved.

But he was released, with authorities knowing full-well how dangerous and uncooperative he was with nothing more to hold him than a parole ruling that he had to be at his home from 6 pm to 6 am.  frankly, if his crimes weren’t so serious I’d give  a hearty laugh at that … if I want to commit rape you think I’m not going to be in the mood at 7 am watching young girls going off to school or at 3 pm when I know they’re home alone?  But again, I can’t vouch for the logic here.

I can vouch, however, for the fact that sending officer’s to a parolee’s home to monitor his curfew is mighty cost and time intensive.  And when they get to his home (”Hey, would you guys maybe bring me a pizza and some beer since you’re on your way here anyway”?) and find he’s not there all hell breaks loose.

After a dangerous and expensive pursuit they captured this clown … thank God no one was hurt and he didn’t get to molest some other woman before the police got him …. but what law enforcement agency can afford this kind of service.

A simple GPS bracelet would have automatically “told” on him when he left home and it would have let the police find him and apprehend him without any high speed chase.  So much simpler, so much more e3ffectibve and so much CHEAPER than the goat rope they went through.

This guy Bruce Bannerman of the B.C. Corrections Branch really takes the cake with me as someone who absolutely misses the whole picture.  Telling rightfully concerned women that GPS technology is over-rated because it could only tell officers where the guy is, and not if he was committing an offence.  Earth to Bruce … his offence was roaming the province while he was supposed to be home under curfew.  D’oh?