Don’t lose track of your vehicle’s tracking device!
Nowadays most modern cars are fitted with tracking devices. A vehicle tracking system is an electronic device installed in a vehicle to enable the owner or a third party to track the vehicle’s location.
It can be a real help when it comes to recovering a stolen car, but it can prove useless if you don’t know enough about your tracking device.
According to Arrive Alive, typical vehicle tracking systems are comprised of two parts: location hardware (or tracking device) and vehicle tracking software.
“The tracking device is most often hardware installed in the vehicle; connected to the ignition switch, battery and antennae. The typical tracking hardware for a fleet management solution uses GPS to pinpoint its location and then updates are transmitted at a regular timed interval or after an event trigger, e.g. ignition on / off. The location data is made available for viewing through many of the solutions sold today, via a website, accessed over the internet, where fleet activity can be viewed live or historically using digital maps and reports,” says Arrive Alive.
However, a vehicle’s tracking device can be of no use if it’s not up-to-date or if the owner doesn’t know enough about it.
In many cases so many people don’t even know who their tracking company is and this poses all sorts of complications when trying to recover a stolen car.
The first ten minutes after a car is stolen are crucial for the recovery of a vehicle. You could be wasting valuable time by phoning around to various family members and/or companies to try and find out which tracking company your vehicle is registered with.
Tracking companies urge vehicle owners to ensure that their device is up to date as it can become inactive over a certain amount of time. If you want to check if your tracker is still active, you’ll need to phone the tracking company you’re associated with and ask for a signal to be tested.