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The commercial below makes my heart sink, and not because I am so thrilled when my son goes driving off.
It shows a teen girl driving like a maniac, playing hooky to go to the beach in a bikini, and sitting on the couch alone with her boyfriend about to…whatever. Then it shows how Verizon’s “Hum,” an electronic device you plug into your car that alerts you when the teen goes too fast, or beyond the boundaries that you aifzirkiaz
get to set, or isn’t where she is supposed to be. You get the tracking info, you get to set the maximum speed. It does everything but put you back in the drivers seat of your child’s life.
Hum. Hmm. As a person terrified of cars in general and my boys driving in particular, road time is a minefield of worry.
But the idea that once we trust our kids to drive we do not trust them to go where they say they’re going, drive the way they tell us they’re driving, or stay where they agreed to stay means a basic bond of trust is gone. We are treating them like toddlers who need direct oversight, even though we make this happen electronically.
The device assumes parents should and must always be in control, even when we’re not there to make informed decisions. For instance, allowing parents to cap the maximum speed: What about when the kids are fleeing a volcano? Or axe murderer? Won’t we feel bad about that 50 MPH limit then? And it alerting us when our kids drive beyond the edge of the boundaries we’ve set. Is exploring always too risky? Do we want kids who never do anything spontaneous or adventurous? More profoundly: Don’t we want the locus of their moral development to be inside them…rather than inside us?
At the same time, look at the message the kids themselves are getting. First off, that even the most basic adulthood is too adult for them. And second, that as parents we are willing to give them all the freedom of a prisoner with an ankle monitor. He can go to and from work, same as our kids are allowed to go to and from school.
Yes, yes, I realize we don’t have to give our kids any wheel-time at all. And driving is a privilege, not a right. But trust is not a privilege. It is the foundation of any real relationship. And when Verizon attempts to erode it by flogging the most stereotypical worries — sex, drugs, craziness — it’s  no different from all the products, articles, books and TV shows that suggest that the minute kids walk outside they could easily get kidnapped, hit by a car, or break a limb.
The Hum operates on worst-first thinking: Show the very worst case scenarios parents can think of, and sell us a device so we can proceed as if it’s all about to happen.
It is extremely easy to undermine a parent’s confidence, because we love our kids so much. I personally feel like the ground is shaky under my feet when my son is driving far away, at night. I just can’t help it.
But I’m not going to Hum him, anymore than I am going to put a chip behind his ear. Letting go is scary. But it beats the alternative. – L
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The Hum promises peace of mind by tracking what your teen is up to. But first it has to take away that peace.Â
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To just completely ruin that pondering, philosophical atmosphere you created (you’re welcome): in the translation at least, ‘hum, hum’ was Dolores Umbridge’s annoying little fake cough. I rest my case 😛
See this isn’t smarter or safer.
DISTRACTED driving, like receiving text alerts that teen driver READS while driving? How the hell is taking her eyes off the wheel to read a text ALERT on her phone helping keep anyone safe? Why not have her text a response back, while doing that donut.
Why is it seen as good parenting to treat teens like criminals with ankle bracelets monitoring their every auto move, just waiting for them to slip up?
How about this: DON’T LET THEM DRIVE if you don’t trust them. Driving is a privilege, not a right, and if your teen is not trustworthy, prone to risk taking behavior, or does donuts on the road, don’t give them a driver’s license or a 3000 lb. weapon to hurt others. Say no. Raise your child to be trustworthy and responsible. It doesn’t require tracking their every move.
Worst. Idea. Ever.
What that device will do is teach your kid better ways of lying to you. They will come up with endlessly creative ways of beating that system, and what’s more, will feel completely justified in doing so.
If you have done *any* of your work properly as a parent over the preceding 16 years, you will be able to set an expectation of good behavior that your kid will work hard to live up to, rather than work hard to hack your restrictions.
Sheesh! Why not just put an ankle tracking bracelet on your kid??
“HUMMMMMM!!!” I guess they’re not hiding the fact that their target customers are helicopter parents.
Or maybe mosquitoes.
Wow…just wow. As lollipoplover puts it, save yourself the trouble and don’t let them drive if you’re that worried about it. Of course, a kid wanting to play hooky will just hitch a ride with a friend. If you treat them like criminals, they will act like criminals, and find ways to work around you. It’s a vicious cycle – you don’t trust them and when they screw up (which they will because teenagers) it reinforces your mindset that they can’t be trusted. Give them boundaries, give them responsibility, give them freedom to make mistakes. This gadget isn’t freedom for the kid or the mom.
By the time a kid is a teenager — it’s time to either trust them, or admit that you’ve failed as a parent.
In the process of growing up everyone does stupid things at different ages. Yes, most kids cut school at some point, drive too fast, and go wherever their parents told them not to go. It is part of life. It will happen either while under the parents’ roofs or later in life. I’m amazed at parents, and schools, who go beserk over kids’ dress and hairstyle/hair color. When do we want this experimentation to occur? If such have negative consequences I want them when they are home and we, as parents, can help pick up the pieces and redirect them. Others seem to think that if they watch everything the kids do then whatever happens when they leave home in on the kids not the parents. It’s just the opposite. We gradually eliminated all curfews before ours went to college. They made “mistakes” but we were here to help – not judge. They saw so many kids get to college and be free for the first time. They could stay out as late as they wished, cut as many classes as they wanted, party forever with no controls until they flunked out first semester. The parents blamed the kids.
“Driving is a privilege, not a right, and if your teen is not trustworthy, prone to risk taking behavior, or does donuts on the road, don’t give them a driver’s license or a 3000 lb. weapon to hurt others. Say no.”
But then their kid will be mad at them and they can’t have their children be mad at them.
As a kid, I would have exploited this to drive my parents nuts – bad enough their pre-internet watching prompted me to learn rudimentary tradecraft. As an adult, I have a hard time seeing this being limited to use on kids. Oddly enough, the only adults this sort of technology seems to be used on is either by consent (the trucking/delivery industry uses something like this mostly in interest of the goods they are entrusted with and you don’t have to work for them) or prisoners in the form of an anklet. It reminds me of the words of Terry Goodkind – “You collar a beast. You collar your enemies”. Where does that put one in relation to their kids?
It won’t take your horny teen long to figure out she can kiss that boy right in her car, where HUM is a dum dum, and not drive over his house (BOUNDARY ALERT!). Talk to your teen about safe sex instead of trying to monitor their every move, unsuccessfully. Backseat babies get conceived every day!
And maximum speed alert???
What if she has to speed up to avoid cars merging on a road and a potential accident?
Should she use bad judgement and slow down, fearful of triggering HUM, and just get smashed by a tractor trailer? I guess you won’t get an alert for that one…
I wonder what type of parent has the time or desire to track this, and what they do with all of these alerts. I barely respond to most of my emails. If you are relying on an electronic device for peace of mind with teenagers, you are delusional. Talk to your kids. Get to know their friends and even invite them over. Teens get such a bad reputation! I know so many great, trustworthy kids who know right from wrong and do not need to be treated like they could do something wrong at any minute. I’m confident that some of them will make better drivers than the minivan drivers that talk and text on their phones all the live long day.
Yup, my first thought when I first saw this commercial was what many of you have already said – you’re trusting them to drive the car, they’ve proven to a government body that they are worthy of that driver’s license, but you’re not going to trust them while they’re IN that car? Ridiculous.
But I bet there are parents tripping all over themselves to buy one of these as soon as possible.
It’s a lot like the commercial in which dad uses his backup camera to spy on his daughter kissing her boyfriend on the porch. The daughter didn’t look like she was a younger teen, so….it’s age-appropriate to want to kiss her boyfriend. But instead, let’s think of a new use for a feature (that’s doesn’t have anything to do with parenting) for dads who don’t want their kids to do age-appropriate things! Cool!!
“Yes, most kids cut school at some point, drive too fast, and go wherever their parents told them not to go.”
Nonsense.
The weird thing is that this ad is probably going to be counter-productive. If they pushed the fear buttons more subtly, they might get more parents whose motivation is ‘better safe than sorry.’
The fearful, suspicious, and nutty parents are going to go for this no matter what, so why would Verizon alienate the more reasonable among us by implying that their precious snowflakes are lying, untrustworthy, and calculating?
“But then their kid will be mad at them and they can’t have their children be mad at them.”
That’s the crux of the problem right there.
Kids will get their driver’s license at minimum ages even if they are horrible, irresponsible brats. But we have Hum! Many will get very nice cars (with premium insurance rates) that they will likely crash and have replaced.
The commercisl says, Put some smarts in your car.
That’s exactly what I did. I put my smart kids in the car and let them drive. I told them they would be fine, and they were. Did they speed? Almost certainly. Did they get lost? Yes. Did they go where they weren’t supposed to go? You bet they did.
Did they learn how to be better, more responsible drivers after correcting their mistakes? Absolutely.
Couldn’t a teen just turn his/her phone on airplane mode when going “out of bounds” or about to drive too fast? All we have to worry about is the teen looking at the phone while driving, which is definitely risky! “Huh, mom, my phone battery died.” “Hm, must have hit a dead zone.”
Is HUM another name for 1984 Helicopter Parent?
Gotta love “marketing”. As bad as some of these companies are, doing, saying anything to sell their products, they do their jobs very well. They can sell ice to Inuits kinda thing. There will be a crap load of parents waiting in line for this. lol This is an old technology though. I know some people who’ve had something similar. But the user would have to physically connect their computer to the module, that’s required, or remove the module and connect to a computer. It gives the history of the drive. How fast, at what time, how far, where? etc. This one is more advanced, in that it also incorporates mobiles.
But this is more like an ankle monitor. And children are treated like criminals that need to be monitored 24/7. If they never learn consequence of action, they never learn. Which leads me to my question. If the parent gets an alert, what do they do then? Negotiate, and give hugs and kisses? lol
Forget the HUM.
Let’s all jump on board with the Chip Behind the Ear device and control the kiddies for life! Could we get legislation to have it installed as mandatory equipment at birth?
Guaranteed worry-free parenting!
I was born in 1949(I am off the hippie generation)
-As I pre-teen, I felt sorry for men-and for older boys.
I found that the vast majority of teenagers were not bullies, Men were often excellent role models-on teaching children how to handle their emotions-sensibly and even-temperedly.
When I was 22, a girl of 12(who was a half-orphan)sought me as a father friend.
People thought she was after me for sex.
She was NOT.
-She would often GO TO BAT for me, when children treated me foolishly.
Young adolescent girls had a hard time. They were too big to play children’s games-but were too young to date.
(When I was a kid, there was less pressure for a boy to “grow up” than for a girl. Boys of 12-14 enjoyed simple youthful games-like hide-and-seek.)
A girl did not hesitate to go to bat-for a man-or for a boy playmate. But how many people would go to bat-for a female-who was falsely accused-of seeking a boy or man for sex.
All three of my neighbor girls have taken my car out to teach themselves to drive. They had permits, their dad worked and no way was mom letting them touch her car. So, either I would go out with them or just let them take my car.
The first time, the eldest told me she was just going across town to see a friend. She came back three hours later with over 100 miles on the odometer. Did I rat her out? Nope, my car was fine and she filled it with gas. Not my problem. Do I mind that she lied to me? She was 16. I expect it from other people’s kids. I still trusted her little sisters over the next five years. All are very good – if fast – drivers.
This is where you run into the whole, “It’s a tool which may be useful in particular cases” being marketed as a general-use tool. Makes me think of Ritalin–“Oh, your kid is hyperactive. This’ll calm him down.”
Yes, I can imagine situations where a parent might impose something like this on their kid, if the kid has a history of misbehaving and a car is an important part of life. Not everybody lives in the city and the kid may need a car to get to and from school/work.
But deploying this generally? “Hey! You’re 16! Here’s your license! I’m now tracking the car” is ridiculous. To me, this would be a tool of last resort.
I am so disappointed with technology. I don’t need another app or fitbit to track my steps and where my children are as red dots on a map.
I need a Rosie from the Jetsons to help clean my house, do laundry, and cook dinner.
The whole idea of this concerns me, but one point in particular really bothers me and that’s the maximum speed thing. That could cause problems because you never know what’s going to come at you on the road and there are times when you might need to speed up.
A while back, in order to try to save some money on our car insurance, we agreed to use Progressive’s Snap Shot device to monitor our driving habits. After we received the devices we discovered that all it really tracks is how abruptly you apply your brakes. I assume this is supposed to train you to leave larger distances between you and the car in front of you, and reduce the potential for an accident if someone in front of you stops fast. You know what it did to me? Made me more prone to run red lights. I found that in situations where I was right at that point when the light turned yellow and I had to make a quick decision whether I’d stop fast or try to get through, I was more likely to put the pedal to the metal and try to get through than I had ever been (I’ve been driving for almost 30 years). Why? Because if I hit the brakes to stop fast, the device would beep and it would count against me on my score to get a higher discount. After a few weeks of that, I took the device out and sent it back because it was causing my driving habits to get worse instead of better. Plus, it was making me madder than usual whenever someone would cut me off and I’d have to hit the brakes, because it would ding my score. I was spending too much time worrying about whether the device was going to beep and it was distracting me from paying actual attention to driving defensively.
All that to say that this HUM thing could, and probably will, have the exact opposite effect on all levels than is intended.
On another note, what’s to stop your kid from unplugging the darn thing once they leave the house? It doesn’t look like it’s locked in place.
Do note that the device does not set a maximum speed for the car, just the minimum speed at which you’d get an alert. As far as the various scenarios about cases where it is justified, I’m sure that you could distinguish between a “75 MPH for 10 seconds” and a “95 MPH for 3 hours” (as I did when driving down I-5 once when I was younger) scenario and know if either were justified.
So, I’ll be the first to make a You Tube video showing teens how to disable and remove the device. I’ll tell them to toss it in some random dumpster, and learn how to say “gee, mom, I have no idea what you’re talking about” with a straight face.
This is so right on. And yes, our kids/teens will make many mistakes along the way, but they must do so in order to learn how to cope with real life. This is a big reason we are seeing the insanity on college campuses today that we are.
I wonder sometimes if we have gone too far to turn it all back. It might take 2 generations of kids growing up under these restraints to value freedom and fight for it for their own families and culture.
Screw the hum for real
Pure and simple, if you cannot trust your teen to use the car un monitored then they shouldn’t be driving. It is that simple.
When you have children, it is up to the parents to guide them along so they learn responsibility, honesty and just plainly be a good person. If you can’t do that, then you failed in raising your kids. This is a parents responsibility and that is why when their children are ready to go on their own, you have tried your best in successfully raising your kids. Whatever they do from now on is their responsibility. Of course parents are not perfect and slip up from time to time. You did the best you can accomplishing your tasks. You sincerely hope you did a good job. Now here comes Verizon with a bright idea using your phone to track where your kids go, what speed limit they are observing, and how erratic they drive. Here’s an idea. Why not just have a drone follow them?
One of the problems with this sort of approach is that it comes up with a very narrow definition of unsafe behaviour. Unsafe = going out of bounds and driving too fast. To quote one of the executives, “Parents can now sleep well at night knowing their precious cargo is safe on the road”. Which is a lie. They know their child isn’t speeding, and that the car (not the driver) is within a certain region.
It doesn’t tell if the child has been drinking, or is letting someone else drive, or is talking on the phone or texting or doing their makeup or eating a burger or otherwise not paying attention, or is too tired to safely drive, or playing music so loud they can’t hear horns and sirens, or giving a lift to a bunch of friends, or having sex in the back seat. It doesn’t tell you anything about your child driving someone else’s car.
You’re not going to come up with an app that is going to ensure that your child is 100% safe and rule abiding when they’ve got the car, or are out without you in attendance. What you can do is work from a young age at teaching your kid responsible behaviour, and set out the expectations for sensible behaviour when they are driving. If they can’t be trusted to drive sensibly, then you don’t give them car privileges.
This is the point where helicopter parenting becomes dangerous. They’ve been protecting their child so carefully, making sure they never get hurt, never fail, never risk anything, and are monitored so they can’t do anything dumb, ever. They’ve never been trusted to do anything competently, or to behave when not watched.
And suddenly, at 16, they’re expected to jump from a level of responsibility and freedom appropriate for an eight year old, to operating a potentially deadly piece of machinery.
This story is heartbreaking-
17 year-old student, who was late for her class trip (the bus was leaving without her), struck and killed the superintendent and his dog, who were out jogging:
http://www.nj.com/mercer/index.ssf/2016/04/student_who_struck_superintendent_was_late_for_cla.html
Let’s not lose sight of the real issue here. Companies are in the business to make money. Verizon needs to sell airtime/data use. They will appeal to any emotional stimulus that will make you buy their product or service. Here they play on fear, parental shaming and a perceived sense of safety. Fear, sex, and shaming can sell almost any product and we get manipulated all the time.
“Parents can now sleep well at night knowing their precious cargo is safe on the road”
You’d think cargo stops being cargo once it can drive itself…
Good luck using it on a young driver like I was. I used my dad’s truck for my test, passed and went straight to the ministry and registered my own car. Bought, rebuilt and insured with my own money.
This app can’t “make” young people always do the right thing when they’re driving. It may be a means for parents to enforce rules about the car, but I think it’s dangerous to think that “doing the right thing” and “following the rules” aren’t always one and the same. There was the example about speeding up to merge or change lanes, and I think that’s a good one, but I can think of a few more:
1. Skipping school to comfort a friend who’s just found out she’s pregnant, or experiencing a similar crisis.
2. Detouring from a planned outing with friends that turns sour; for example, if one friend suggests doing drugs or drinking, and the teenager with the car starts some “peer pressure” in the other direction, and gets others in the group interested in doing something like, say, going to a movie instead. Good idea, but then Hum sends an alert saying, “Teen should be at Jimmy’s house, but went to Blahblah Theatre instead”; never mind that Jimmy’s house has become the location of a teenage pot party (or worse).
3. Breaking curfew to deal with an issue that just came up, which could be something simple like returning something that one’s companion left behind, or more complex, like driving someone home after their ride bailed, or taking care of a friend who had too much to drink.
4. Going “out of bounds” could be the result of a miscommunication; for example, going somewhere for the first time, and getting the address wrong. For example, it’s possible to hear, “Jenny’s house is on 123 Maple Street,” which is within the boundary, when actually, Jenny’s house in on 456 Oak Street, which is outside it….and meanwhile, Jenny and the gang are counting on the friend with the car to take everyone to a concert or something (that’s parent-approved and within the permitted car radius) that they’ve already bought tickets for.
In the “olden days” (tongue in cheek here), before Hum, reasonable teenagers and parents resolved these issues by talking. Young Person would call from a pay phone, or a cell phone, or text, and some two-way communication would happen. The problem with Hum is, it doesn’t know the circumstances; it just knows the black and white of, “These are Parent’s rules. Young Person did/did not follow Parent’s rules. If Young Person doesn’t follow Parents rules, send alert to Parent.” This puts Parent directly on the warpath, and takes them to the place of “angry,” when maybe it isn’t warranted. The reality is, life isn’t perfect, and so, the goal of raising kids shouldn’t be to create automatons who can follow a checklist of rules 100% of the time, but rather, to teach them good judgement.
Actually, I think that teaching good judgement should start long before driving (with or without Hum) even comes into the picture, but that requires allowing kids to practice good judgement, which sometimes means allowing them to walk or bike or take public transit to places instead of driving them, letting them play freely, or stay home alone after school, rather than enrolling them in a string of supervised activities that they might not even want to do. All of those things are now supposedly “bad parenting decisions” that compel busybodies to get the authorities involved. So, parents acquiesce, and then drop their kids off at college/university/their first apartment/whatever the September after they graduate from high school, and leave them to sink or swim.
*I meant to say, “its dangerous to assume that ‘doing the right thing’ and ‘following the rules’ ARE always doing the same thing.” By the way, I agree with the reference to Dolores Umbridge from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. That was one of the main themes in that book.
Gosh, this is worse than what Kim Jong Um would do to his people!
“Gosh, this is worse than what Kim Jong Um would do to his people!”
I suppose it’s too late for him to get into the presidential race.
Meanwhile in Amsterdam, Anthony Foxx on a bike (from ~1:20): http://www.at5.nl/artikelen/155193/amerikaanse_minister_op_de_fiets_door_amsterdam_be_very_afraid
@Papilio
“Meanwhile in Amsterdam, Anthony Foxx on a bike (from ~1:20):”
It looks like most of the Dutch don’t wear helmets.
John Walsh jacked off to this.
Anyone else see the irony in this whole thing? You trust your child enough to let them out of the house with a 2-ton weapon at their disposal, but don’t trust them to be responsible? Isn’t that kind of like buying your kid a gun and teaching him to shoot, but you won’t let them cut their own food?
@BL: Correct, we don’t believe in helmets. A helmet may or may not help protect one body part of the one person wearing it IF they have an accident/fall that involves a blow to the head. If you’ve ever pedaled to the shop at 12mph on a 50 pound three speed upright Gazelle on car-light pothole-free roads, you know that’s a very big IF.
The Dutch have invested (still do) in measures that help prevent accidents altogether (high quality cycling infrastructure, filtered permeability) and encourage a big majority of the population to cycle for transport.
People who cycle for sport, on a roadbike or mountainbike, do generally wear one.
Bulkshit. This is great. I teach teenagers and they think they are invincible. I have no problem with parents being able to set a normal speed–imagine how many lives this will save. Oh but wait… It’s not letting them do what they want including speeding and endangers pppls lives.,
My one big question is: once this young adult is of legal age to drive do the parents have any legal right to say no? Surely not!
Yes you can refuse to fund lessons and refuse to buy this offspring a car but surely parents can’t stop them from doing it alone if they so wish.
The law says they can drive, so they can drive – end of.
Jsne, it’s nothing at all like you describe and I’m pretty certain you’re well aware of that. Good try though.
My son and I were in the car and the ad for this came on the radio; I turned to him and said: “I promise I will never do this to you.”