Guess we can run, but now we can't hide

[zippyRN]

most if not all A+E , middle tier , RRV and officer vehicles i nthe uk have GPS based AVLS, some services have all their vehicles equipped with AVLS

only a problem if you are going to goof off or prat aobut, from a system point of view it's fab, sit in control and know exactly where every on line resource is and have it prjected on a big screen on the wall!

[FarNorthMedic]

In my area there are no street names, house numbers or highways to get in. The GPS would think I'm driving through the forest :?

[ncmedic309]

Increased accident rate. Cops have been constantly crashing and dying because of driving while watching their MDT. I hope systems that put these things in their units have the sense to mount them visible only to the passenger seat. But I seriously doubt it. Certainly wouldn't put one in my units visible to the driver. I care more about my people than to do something that stupid.

I guess us medics are a little smarter than the cops. We haven't had any accidents in the almost 4 years that we've had them secondary to the driver paying attention to the computer screen. It's actually quite easy and safe to use, your partner sitting next to you navigates as usual, how many times do you look over at the mapbook that your partner is navigating you out of while your driving emergency traffic, I can't recall ever doing it...same thing with the mobile PC. And when your enroute to a hospital, you shouldn't need a map, you should be familiar enough with your county that you can navigate yourself to the destination by recall alone. The mapping system works great, it's the idiots that don't use them properly that run into problems. If your running alone in a vehicle (such as a police officer) you shouldn't have your head turned away from your driving, same principle as driving and talking on a cell phone, pay attention to what your supposed to be doing and you won't end up injured or worse...it's an easy rule to live by...

[csr]

No big deal. The local private service, http://www.acadian.com/ , has had GPS tracking for years. It's worked so well that they branched it off to a fee based service for any interested business, http://www.mobile-monitoring.com/home.html .

Personally I use a ham radio GPS tracking system, http://www.aprs.net/ , for tracking and short text messaging. Several places can track ham operators using this system. For instance, you can find my car by going to http://www.findu.com/cgi-bin/find.cgi?call=kc5sas . That and other sites will keep a history of where I've traveled. For instance by going to- http://www.jfindu.net/track.asp?call=KC5SA...=400&type=3 you will see my commute between my home south of Baton Rouge to my work just west of New Orleans as well as anywhere else I may have traveled in the past 48 hours.

There are thousands of people using this type of system and java based sites like http://www.aprsfl.net/javaprs.html and http://www.aprs-is.net/javalive.htm allow anyone to zoom in or out to see the many stations transmitting data such as weather conditions, speed or direction of travel.