Originally Posted by
Happy Feet
Twice you have mentioned passive tracking gives a starting point for a search. Fair point but I have to ask - how many times has someone had to search for you when they couldn't just call you on the cell phone? Since when did passive tracking become necessary?
Why would the answers to those questions be relevant? The cost of passive tracking is inconsequential, and it has the potential to be helpful. Some things you do because of the consequences of not doing them, not because of the likelihood of needing them.
Note that the argument isn't that passive tracking is NECESSARY. The argument is that passive tracking has the potential to be helpful.
FWIW, I was involved in a few search and rescue operations in the late 1970s and early/mid 1980s. We would have LOVED to have had a better starting point for our searches that "he said he was going to this particular location yesterday, but we haven't heard anything from him since." In some cases, a short search can be the difference between life and death. In every case, a short search is preferable to a long search.
It is possible to have a bike wreck in a remote location. Phones can lose signal, break, or run out of battery. Animals, malicious drivers, and/or other bad actors occasionally commit crimes against cyclists. I don't expect to have any of these things happen on any particular ride. If I did, I'd just stay home that day. But if they do, I'd just as soon someone have a better idea of where to start looking than "he was gone for X hours, and could have traveled at Y mph, so lets draw a big circle on the map."
Originally Posted by
Happy Feet
This attachment to connectivity is an interesting phenom that I attributed earlier to the larger smart phone movement. First people checked on their friends and family once in a while, then at work, then every moment they were not engaged, then even when they are driving or sitting on the can. It's become a reflexive need, not want, not to be alone. Easy access does not reduce or sate that desire rather, it seems to only amplify it. Just look around at human behavior with cell phones and needing to be connected. It's not a good thing for society IMO. Why would passive tracking for an activity that really doesn't need it be any different.
There's a lot of assumptions and projections in that paragraph.