Interesting, can’t believe they work or else no tracker fitted vehicle would ever get recovered. Maybe we could get one on sale or return an share it between the pair of us
GPS jammers do work - it’s pretty easy to jam GPS because the signal from the satellite is so weak.
However, they are also illegal. They block everyone’s GPS within a radius that is probably larger than you think. For example, an automatic aircraft landing system at Newark International Airport (New York) was brought down twice a day for months by a truck driver who drove down the main road past the airport on his daily run, using a GPS jammer to prevent his employer’s tracker from tracking his location. News report here
I found that parking under a pylon once fogged the isotrack system so I could only be located to the nearest 3 miles or something… It all sounded like that bit in Total Recall where arnie puts a wet towel around his head!
What about that incab spy thing that records things like your revs being outside the green area, breaking faster than -6m/sec/sec and other such billy…? Oh, and then there’s the “Target Window Missed” when you’re trying to get into some place like Forest Hill through the rush hour catford traffic!
Since you don’t get a bonus for getting a “good mark” on the system, I consider it bang out of order that the firm feels it needs to have one.
If they insisted on clean drivers instead of “6 points OK” all the time, they’d solve the problem without expensive equipment installations eh?
MADBAZ:
I don’t know about other systems but Masternaut can, subject to vehicle wiring it knows which cab door is open too! as one agency got to find out when he’d taken a mate along.
we have theses trackers but we have our own little key so no matter what vehicle you are in this must be plugged in and if its not it buzz’s like mad so its not the vehicle thats trackerd its the man
and yes it can be rigged up to doors so if you have 10 drops and you open door 11 times they ask why
when we first got them got call from TM asking why i had only turned engine off 6 times but had 9 drops
The company that i worked for had tracking systems fitted some 7 years ago, even back then they could remotely lock/ unlock the rear doors of a merc sprinter, they i believe recently changed the old system and now use the Masternaut system, they also have to carry a keyfob, as without it being in the vehicle it won’t start or something, but that also tells their Fuehrer AKA organ grinder who is in which vehicle at any given point, and that these gps systems can also used to track the temp inside a frigo trailer too, when on temp critical work,
Which i think the now dissolved S.M.S Time/temp critical had something similar
But our lot would also ring you asking where are you, or are you there yet ? and asking for an eta ,Even though at times they had a better idea than we did
whilst you the driver are going to a company inside a town or city in a foreign country ,that you have never been to, and are on a motorway in the rush hour and have no idea how far or how long before you get there as you don’t have a sat nav that’s what it was like for us, and they wouldn’t use it to actually help the drivers find places
bigvern1:
Don’t worry about it…If you’re up to no good, then worry.
+1 weve had em for near 3 years suppose it depends on the office bods , if we get on with the job and dont fanny about (too much ) we get left alone
That’s the rub, I’ve done 5 years on the firm the other driver 30+
I’ve never done a private job, (except for running a couple of bits home) Don’t take the ■■■■ and hang around more than I have to, we are not a transport company and as such it is a struggle to get basic items such as straps and bulbs etc. to keep in good order.
The job is not straightforward, there’s often access issues or other peoples crap equipment that won’t start to deal with but it’s a rare event when we can’t manage. The job gets done without too much fuss, we’re not badly paid and I think we do a good job for the company yet all of a sudden we’re getting close scrutiny.
I have no problem with them looking up to see where I am so they tell a customer without having to bother me but I just feel that there is an unnatural interest in us.
I don’t think having a tracker system fitted is a reflection on you or your workmates 8wheels.
We got a similar sounding system a couple of years ago. For a month or so our Manager was like a kid with a new toy but he soon got bored of it.
The system reports everything what we get up to for example, harsh braking, speeding or how long we are stationary and it hasn’t changed the attitude of the drivers or the office.
Personally, I would like to what my fuel figures are and any other info that might be useful but our lot never pass it on. I suspect the office staff are just too busy doing their own jobs to bother looking over my shoulder.
I wouldn’t be surprised if that is what turns out at your place too.
8wheels:
We’ve had Trackers fitted for 8 or 9 months and up to now we’d been left alone, it seemed as though they were as good as their word and had them fitted solely for security reasons. However in the last couple of weeks both myself and my colleague have noticed that we now get calls essentially telling us where we are and what to do next rather than seeing how we are getting on and asking for an ETA at xyz.
I’ve got nothing to hide but it’s ■■■■■■■ me off a bit, we both feel that it’s as if we’re constantly being watched and that they are going to start making all sorts of promises about what we are going to be able to do without knowing if we’ve had our breaks or are due one shortly.
Anyone got any bright ideas that might fog the picture a bit. Or is it just a sign of the way things are.
weve got trackers on all of our fleet, being on nights i get left alone as theres no one in the office
before when i was on general haulage they was on the phone all the time ,usually asking why youve stopped.
I got my own back the one day on my way back from falmouth id stopped at exeter services for the loo and spent in total 20 mins after getting a coffee when the phone goes, was one of the planners ringing up to see why id stopped at exeter services again as i had stopped there on the way down for a break, so i said i’d stopped for a dump why did you want to come and wipe me backside for me, just to make sure i’m doing it properly , funny the phone calls stopped after that outburst
starfighter:
Look on the bright side, they’ve decided there’s another load and picked the closest vehicle without hassling everyone by ringing them all up to see where they are.
Pretty much what they are for IMO, a management tool to help cut costs, and, help to keep the customer happy…simples
i`ve always worked on the old maxim ; nowt to hide, nowt to lose
Only the cheats seem to get stressed by trackers, just an observation at the places where i`ve been
I go out, i do the job. If someone wants to play computer games while I work, then let them.If they can get someone to do it better, quicker, safer than me, then let them. No amount of in cab technology is going to get you through a jam when the M25 is closed any quicker than good old eyeball mark 1.
If i’m driving, i don’t answer my phone, handsfree or not. if i get hasstle, my stock answer is “you won’t believe it, but they’ve closed the “>enter your comapny name here<” lane on the “>motorway/road numbe<r” and i’ve got to use the same road as everyone else.”
d4c24a:
we have had them fitted to our (the firms) transits over 200 of them ,many do not work properly ,badly fitted resulting in problems with the lights etc ,Tracker have been back twice now to fix them
someone got a blocker on ebay but it does not work , another disconnected theirs and got a written warning
me i am not bothered as others have said ,i get on with my work and get left alone
A mate of mine, who does similar to you, has had ALL his saturday cash in hand “farmer Giles” work kyboshed
Mind you, he took the pi$$, using their van, their lubes, their kit
You’re not being stalked, put yourself in your employers shoes, if it were my truck and trailer worth £££sss and the load of a valued customer worth £££sss I would like to know where you are.
I would also like to know if you left the engine idling, if you were a little rev happy and you liked to brake a bit to hard. There is know an extremely fine line between profit and loss. ■■■■ it up and get used to it.
The whole time I’ve been a Virginia we’ve had trackers. I think they are great, but that’s because it means they leave us alone, we only ever get texts about reloads n stuff. The trackers on the trailer even monitor the fridge. A few times I’ve had a message to check the fridge and lo and behold its stopped because of a fault code.
Juddian:
You need to get yourselves unionised properly and support your steward and each other, good union agreements take into account what trackers can and cannot be used for.
Divided and alone you are easy pickings, one at a time you are picked off and the other blokes say and do nothing, get the sack and they fight over who’s having your truck before you’ve cleared your kit out.
You need a gobby bolshey sod for steward though, one who can’t be bought.
What a load of utter militant rubbish, it’s no wonder Unions have the reputation they do when utterly useless crud like this is spouted.
It’s the owners right to place what ever tracking system they wish into their vehicles. Sometimes it’s a requirement of their insurance sometimes it’s not. Sometimes its used for training drivers, sometimes it’s used to catch out drivers attempting to fraud their company, sometimes it’s used to track a stolen vehicle, sometimes its used to re-route a schedule, sometimes its used to pinpoint a driver and vehicle when a member of the public has claimed an accident and at the end of the day it can be used for many purposes.
Years ago i had one on my truck when travelling abroad and had no issues with it what so ever, i never had anything to hide. More recently i have used them as a manager to keep an eye on my fleet. I have had claims made by members of the public about damage caused to their vehicles which where proved to be incorrect using such tacking system. At the end of the day telemetry has been in trucks for donkey’s years and also GPS systems have too.
The anonymity of driving has been removed to a certain degree, but why should you care? In most environments you work with your boss either in the office/warehouse with you while driving you don’t. Be thankful you don’t drive a bus where there are camera’s all over the place and scratching your backside is recorded, while for their own safety it can be somewhat invasive.
Bardon put them in all the trucks about 18 months back, stopped using them when they realised they really didn’t have a clue.
Once rung my dad telling him he was just outside Penrith, when he was on the M65 (They’d looked at my Uncle’s tracker signal, same surname!) and another time they hadn’t updated the PC for well over an hour.
I dont mind them knowing where iam its the rest off it.Got called into the office last week to be told i am a bad driver,all because there system told them that i had not used by CC all week ,well the truck i had for 2 days it did not work and the other days i was in the middle of london,they told me i was over reving the engine ,this was due to the auto gear box going into manual and having to use a indicator type stick to change gear also said i braked to hard (person running out infront of me) and the last one was my engine was idling to long ,the chart showed this was on the A10 ,north circ,M25■■? just maybe the amount of traffic.My point about all this is its ok for the transport office to have a new toy to play with but if they dont use it right there just going to cause a lot of problems and pi55 a lot of people off.
garp:
I dont mind them knowing where iam its the rest off it.Got called into the office last week to be told i am a bad driver,all because there system told them that i had not used by CC all week ,well the truck i had for 2 days it did not work and the other days i was in the middle of london,they told me i was over reving the engine ,this was due to the auto gear box going into manual and having to use a indicator type stick to change gear also said i braked to hard (person running out infront of me) and the last one was my engine was idling to long ,the chart showed this was on the A10 ,north circ,M25■■? just maybe the amount of traffic.My point about all this is its ok for the transport office to have a new toy to play with but if they dont use it right there just going to cause a lot of problems and pi55 a lot of people off.
What we are all getting excited about, aint the kit, its the managment..............if they dont know how to glean the correct information from their new and shiny tracking system, thats their fault, not the drivers
The driver can help his/her predicament, by, calmly answering the queries, not with a two stroke engine impression, just a clear, in their eye, explanation of the facts…
I find this works everytime, especially when you are being grilled by either a spotty child straight out of uni, or, the older version, who thinks he knows more about your job, even though he does`nt have an HGV licence
so its not the vehicle thats trackerd its the man
as theres no one in the office
