GPS Tracking ROI

No trace yet of missing Ingles truck driver

From air and by road, the search hits 3-day mark

by Jordan Schrader, jschrade@CITIZEN-TIMES.com

published May 25, 2006 12:15 am

BLACK MOUNTAIN – They flew helicopters over highways, watched footage from truck stop video cameras, checked cell phone and credit card records and asked questions at hospitals and a flea market.

But authorities and Ingles Markets employees found no sign of Richard Fox or Truck 906 as a third day passed since the truck driver’s disappearance.

“We’re very concerned,” said Ronnie Burns, director of distribution at the grocery chain’s warehouse in Black Mountain. “We’re running out of options that we can come up with.” … Rest of Lame Excuse Here:

Yesterday was a slow news day for my blogging. Didn’t take long for things to open up today, though. Now I much prefer to write about success stories and companies saving money with GPS, but every so often I just have to keep alive the thought that GPS provides safety along with its savings.

Here we have a 67yo man with a stable lifestyle and stable family situation gone missing along with his truck and $30,000 worth of cargo. The cargo was mundane grocery items, not DVD players or cigarettes, so the thought that he was hijacked for his cargo doesn’t pop out at first.

But it’s been three days now, and no trace. He could have met with an accident or with foul play or he could have run away to Mexico … but between his frantic family, his concerned employer and various law enforcement agencies already way more than the cost of a GPS tracking system for that tuck has been spent. And we still don’t know if the poor man is lying, slowly dying, in a ditch somewhere.

The trucking company involved made two statements that amazed me … they don’t equip their trucks with either radio or GPS tracking (to me this indicates they are making _way_ too much profit, they are giving away hundreds per month per truck compared to the hundreds of thousands of trucking companies who do use GPS) and they do not specify driver’s routes. Well hello! I can mount a GPS monitor on anyone’s delivery vehicle, let them go about their business for a week and then have intelligent routing software re-route the actual stops and I’ll show a savings of 10%, minimum, guaranteed. With today’s “Just In Time” logistics and $3.00 diesel fuel, giving a cadre of drivers a fleet of trucks and sending them out blind is not only an archaic business practice, it’s downright negligent. Does not this Ingles Company have stockholders or other investors? Does not management have a duty to earn their management salary?

Forget about the fact that a small investment in GPS tracking might have saved the life of Mr. Fox or eased the pain of his family … one way or another 10’s of thousands of dollars of company assets are missing (and surely someone else had to be dispatched to stock the original store that Mr. Fox was heading for). Are these managers collecting their paychecks every week? I see little evidence of management, I see massive evidence of just ‘pay me until I retire’, it’s not my problem. Sad.

My thoughts and prayers got out to Mr. Fox and his family.