The launch of the AMBER Alert Highway Network — aimed at helping recover abducted children quickly and safely — has been established by Qualcomm Inc. in partnership with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC).
Qualcomm says the network will redistribute AMBER Alerts on abducted children directly to truck drivers to significantly broaden the audience of those who can help find these children. The new initiative, which has the support of the American Trucking Associations (ATA), holds the potential to enlist thousands of truck drivers to help rescue children nationwide.
“Qualcomm is proud to use our satellite-based mobile communications and location-based services to work with NCMEC, trucking companies and their drivers across the country to help locate abducted children,” says Joan Waltman, president of Qualcomm Wireless Business Solutions. “We encourage fleets to learn more and join the AMBER Alert Highway Network so that even more of America's professional truck drivers can participate. There's no more noble cause than the search for and recovery of an abducted child.”
Secondary methods of distribution such as Qualcomm's initiative (which delivers AMBER Alerts via onboard OmniTRACS mobile-communications systems) assist in achieving the overall goal of the AMBER Alert program — to notify as many people as possible about a recent child abduction and provide information that can help in the search for the abducted child, suspected abductor, and/or suspected vehicle, and in the safer return of the child.
For drivers to receive AMBER Alerts through on-board communications systems, their carriers must be enrolled in the AMBER Alert Highway Network. For more information about the program and how to enroll, go to www.qualcomm.com/qwbs. Initial members of the AMBER Alert Highway Network include Wal-Mart; Tyson Foods, Inc.; Omaha, NB-based Cornhusker Motor Lines, Inc.; bulk liquid commodities carrier Distribution Technologies, Inc.; regional transportation company G&P Trucking; Chattanooga, TN-based U.S. Xpress Enterprises, Inc.; national transportation and brokerage company Pottles Transportation, Inc.; and tanker specialists Grammer Industries Inc.
