Yeah because that has totally been a problem I've been needing a solution for.
A young woman was abducted recently on a local trail. I don't believe she's been found yet. Perhaps this would have made some difference.
This just seems like a way for busybody and manipulative people to stir up drama.
Anyone who has ever expected an at-risk person to make contact at an estimated time can relate how worrying it is when that person is delayed.
1. Police can, but won't until they consider it a missing person scenario, which oftdn involves considerable delay, at least for an adult -- and that's even if the police happen to prioritize that case.
2. For many people in various places for a variety of reasons, even aside from delay issues, the police aren't the first people they'd want to rely on. Or even on that list at all.
> This just seems like a way for busybody and manipulative people to stir up drama
There is some risk of that, but there's also empowerment of people to create their own effective support networks of real, personal trust.
I just suspect that your solution to the smaller problem will make something that's a much larger problem (as in, more than an order of magnitude larger) worse.
This product is a much better version of that system. It's impervious to me forgetting to send the text and gives an accurate location rather than "somewhere in the general area served by this trailhead".
Then again, I'm in Europe, so crime rates are virtually zero, and the only risk is spraining an ankle or something.
I'm also paranoid, so I carry a Cospas-Sarsat PLB as well. But you need to be conscious, and have at least one arm working, to activate that.
Hikes can still be dangerous, especially in the mountains. Hereabouts, pretty much every year several people get seriously injured on one of the trails, usually by tripping and falling down the slope; and in most years, there's at least one fatality.
Usually it's because people veer off the trail or do something similarly dangerous, but sometimes it's just dangerous conditions (e.g. ice) on regular, well-maintained trails that are normally safe, or just bad luck. Better safe than sorry.
His parents were at the finish line waiting and, apparently out of shame, he did not tell them, nor did he answer any calls. So, the organizers sent out an emergency search and rescue team. It was not for another two and a half hours that they realized that the competitor was sitting at home and choosing not to answer his phone.