Cellphone tracking gives you peace of mind

— -- Did your kids make it to school OK? Is your spouse late because of traffic, or was there an accident? These kinds of worries can plague you. But new tracking tools can put your mind at ease.

There are plenty of GPS gadgets that will help you track your family. But, using a cellphone is your best bet. You won't need to invest in a new gadget. And, these days, nobody goes anywhere without their phone.

Start with your cellular provider

Most major cellular providers offer tracking services. Verizon offers Chaperone. AT&T's service is called FamilyMap, while Sprint's is Family Locator.

You'll pay a small monthly fee for the privilege. This is usually between $5 and $10 per phone tracked.

These services use a phone's built-in GPS chip to determine location. Of course, not all phones have a GPS chip. Or, GPS signals can be spotty.

In that case, the services can use cellular towers to triangulate a user's location. This is less accurate than GPS. But even GPS won't give you pinpoint accuracy.

Also worth noting, some phones with GPS chips always use triangulation. AT&T's service, for example, uses triangulation with the iPhone.

You can use your phone or PC to view family members' locations. They are plotted on a map for easy viewing.

You'll also find other nice features. For example, Verizon lets you set up Child Zones. You'll be notified when your child enters or leaves one of these zones. Sprint and AT&T let you schedule alerts. You'll receive location information on a schedule you set.

Sprint says its service works on all its phones. It also works on Nextel phones. However, in some cases, older phones are incompatible. AT&T's service should work on all of its phones. Verizon's service works on select phones.

Try Google Latitude

The person you want to track may have a smart phone. In that case, you don't necessarily need to pay for tracking. Google Latitude will do the work for you.