By Duncan MacAlister, Vice-President, NFU Scotland
ATVs are a great addition to any farm, allowing for hard-to-reach areas to be accessed, fences to be checked quickly and efficiently and are a key tool in day-to-day operations. Adding a GPS tracker is an easy way to ensure you, your family and employees are safe.
ATV trackers are compact GPS gadgets that hook discreetly onto your quad bike or utility ATV. They use GPS and mobile networks to ping your vehicle’s location straight to your phone or computer. That means you can check its whereabouts live, set up virtual boundaries (known as “geofencing”), look back at travel history, and even get alerts if the ATV suddenly stops, rolls, or leaves its assigned zone.
Farming isn’t a desk job. It’s fields at dawn, barns in the dark, and sometimes crawling under hedges or tinkering on steep slopes – all often done solo.
That’s where trackers become your silent partner:
- Roll, crash or stall alerts: Modern trackers can sense sudden movements—like a rollover or abrupt stop and ping you or your emergency contact with a location alert.
- No-show alarms: If your ATV doesn’t show up at the yard by a set time, a quick look at the map lets you know where to start looking.
- Check-in peace of mind: A ping at start, midpoint, and destination means someone is watching – even when they’re not physically there.
These features aren’t just handy. They’re lifesaving, especially when first responders are miles away.
Trackers are well known for their use as anti-theft devices. In the UK, quad bikes and All-Terrain Vehicles (ATVs) remain high on thieves’ shopping lists, despite falling 16% to an estimated £2.7m in 2025, while overall rural crime in the UK topped £44.1m. Tracking devices don’t just help recover stolen kit, they deter thieves in the first place. Instead of losing a tool for days, or months, trackers help get ATVs back fast.
Installing a solid ATV tracker, usually priced around £200-300 plus a small monthly fee, is a bargain compared to the cost of accidents, theft, or delayed response in an emergency. That’s less than a week’s diesel for most farms, and the payoff? Faster rescues, stolen vehicles back quickly, and happier, safer farm folk.
What’s not to like?
