Drivers Can Now Use Satellite Communications To Protect Children
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children worked with communications supplier Qualcomm to set up an Amber Alert Highway Network to alert truckers when a child has gone missing in their vicinity.
Truck drivers have a tradition of looking out for others. Many stranded motorists and others in trouble on the highway have looked up to see the extended hand of a trucker, and not a few bad guys have been brought to heel with a trucker's help. One long-time alliance that has grown out of this tradition is between drivers and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Now that relationship is entering a new phase with a program that links drivers with the center through satellite communications. The center, working with communications supplier Qualcomm, has set up the Amber Alert Highway Network, which uses Qualcomm's OmniTracs communications and positioning system to alert drivers when a child has gone missing in their vicinity. A number of trucking companies are already signed up: Cornhusker Motor Lines, Distribution Technologies, U.S. Xpress Enterprises, Pottles Transportation, Grammer Industries and G&P Trucking. Also on board are private carriers Wal-Mart and Tyson Foods, for a total of some 20,000 drivers.
"This is the sort of thing we like to do," said American Trucking Association President Bill Graves at the public enveiling of the program.
The program is a national version of a link-up between the center, Qualcomm and Wal-Mart call the Wal-Mart RoadWatch program.
"Truck drivers have already proven to be a valuable asset in monitoring the nation's roads for missing children," said Ernie Allen, president and CEO of the center. "Qualcomm's mobile communications solution helps increase the reach, and therefore the effectiveness, of Amber Alerts. Just one driver knowing what to look for on the road could assist law enforcement in the safer recovery of an abducted child."
For more information, and to enroll in the network, go to www.qualcomm.com/qwbs, or call (800) 348-7227.
- Oliver B. Patton, Washington Editor
News continued...
|
