There’s a ton of rare, negative scenarios where risk reduction is so cheap and easy that you’re silly not to do it. Car accident deaths are about 1 in 100 million miles driven, you certainly can’t control other drivers, but not putting on a seatbelt is stupid.

if they have a phone they can call for help. before mobile phones they used payphones.

> Kid is riding bike, falls and knocked out:

Unless its somewhere very lonely, someone sees the kid, calls emergency services, who contact the parent. I do not know how this works in the US where you pay for ambulances though.

It probably works out fine, but relies on someone noticing. A tracker or phone wouldn't require that helpful stranger as a pre-req.

You do not have to install a tracking app, so it does not distort the relationship between parent and child so much.

IMHO the key question is: what do you with that fear? If you let it rule you, there is a high risk of becoming such a controlling and overprotective parent that the child never gets the real-world experience that they need in order to survive.

I have seen many real-life cases of parents who were way too overprotective, out of a motivation of love and concern. But it really hurt the children because while they were kept safe, they hadn't developed a lot of street smarts. By the time they then ended up in college, they were a ripe target for predators.

Timeless problem faced by probably every halfway decent parent that ever lived.