What do we do with people who still have a car alarm?

My car's got an alarm, what's the problem?

That is not one of the options.

Who hears a car alarm and goes "STOP, THIEF!"...? It's always like, a drunk bumped into it or was loud while walking by and you're going, "oh goddammit I've got to work in the morning someone shut that damn thing off ahhhhh!"

This is less a problem for me than the parking lot gate that breaks and the alarm that goes with THAT.

maybe your problem is with people that set off car alarms? just a thought.

Who hears a car alarm and goes "STOP, THIEF!"...?

I will probably do that if there's someone in the car rummaging about and the window was smashed

nightrider

Last year there was a car alarm going off in the street at about 4am and we looked out the window to see all our other neighbours also looking out the window, then we went back to bed. Next day the police came round to ask if we'd seen or heard anything as our neighbours had had their car broken into and their satnav stolen. It turn out everyone had heard the alarm, no-one had thought to do anything other than look, go "oh, it's them at number 75, their alarm's going off, oh well, back to bed". They are kind of pointless, except that you still get your insurance cheaper if you have one, because insurance companies seem to be believe they are some sort of deterrent rather than a bloody nuisance that everyone hates and everyone ignores.

Nobody benefits from parking on a crowded city street with a noisemaking car alarm from ye olden days, particularly not when we now have immobilizers and tracking systems. Noise is just noise, it's pollution, it's like throwing trash in the street.

And it gets my day started on a nasty, nasty note. :(

do people not nick stuff from inside cars without driving them off these days?

I know I do

a: make a movie about it

Not that car alarms are entirely useless (just real close to it for the 'everyone just tries to ignore them' factor), but you could always just not leave your pawnables in the car. I don't drive, but most of my friends live in a part of town prone to vehicle break-ins and it's proven really effective.

do people not nick stuff from inside cars without driving them off these days?

well, the question is whether an alarm does anything to stop that, and ailsa's anecdote illustrates one reason that they do not. (By the way, where was the owner of the vehicle in that story?) But someone who's going to smash a window and snatch the iPod from under the seat doesn't give a hoot about car alarms either -- even if it were not true that everyone ignores them, which of course they do, the criminal is long gone by the time anyone has a chance to throw on sweatpants and charge outside to see what's going on.

Just a bit of googling reveals page after page after page of studies and fact sheets and testimonials from cops and on and on about how car alarms don't do a thing to stop anyone from doing anything. You can also find counterclaims from -- gasp! -- car alarm manufacturers.

Not that car alarms are entirely useless

No, they are entirely useless. They really really are.

(By the way, where was the owner of the vehicle in that story?)

Probably asleep at the back of the house moaning about some other bastard's alarm going off. I have no idea, actually.

Completely useless. Especially when set with too high a sensitivity so that every Harley that putters by sets the damn thing off.

^^^this

I'm trying not to rule out the possibility of the owner hearing it and maybe actually recognizing that it's his/her alarm blaring, though I've honestly never heard of that actually happening from anyone anywhere.

love these when there's a storm and 1000 go off at once and repeatedly (at unpredictable intervals!) the whole night through. not always the car owner's fault, since they often come standard and are activated by default when locking doors. though i suppose one could figure out how to turn them off entirely.

I've been trying to figure out if alarms would help my friend who works in an area where someone's been breaking into cars for the last month or so, mostly after work hours and on the weekend. He saw someone pulling by and casing his car as he was leaving the other day, but they sped off when he got near the door.

Still, nothing beats the less competent thief who he caught trying to throw a brick through his window. Note that the guy failed pretty miserably, didn't even leave a scratch.

love these when there's a storm and 1000 go off at once and repeatedly (at unpredictable intervals!) the whole night through

See also firework displays.

This thread has some handy advice on what to do with those people:

A car alarm keeps going off outside my house....what should I do?

maybe these are useful in the suburbs or whatever but they need to stfu in my hood

i think my favorite was leaving work a few days ago. some people had opened the fire hydrant for refreshing summer water play and it was pummeling this car, setting the alarm off, but only for random 5 second spurts at a time. it was kind of hilarious. but still, everyone just sat around and played in the water.

i also think most home security systems are entirely useless.

nah nobody pays attention to these in the burbs either

i also think most home security systems are entirely useless.

If I'm not mistaken, the only thing that seems to consistently deter break-ins is lights. Not too practical for a car, unfortunately.

when i lived on augusta there was a truck that parked under a tree and every time it rained or was windy a branch would set off the goddamn alarm. it would go off every fucking 5 minutes. drove me insane.

They should really make an alarm that texts your phone instead of aggravating a whole neighborhood of (hitherto) indifferent onlookers.

I thought the same thing, but the "point" of the alarms is to make a ruckus. Cause what're you gonna do if you get that text other than go "oh fuck i've been burglared". Either that or think "hm must be another drunk bumping into it"

they should have one that texts you, lights up all the dash, and flashes a "the cops are being notified, this car will self destruct in 5 seconds, your fingerprints are being sent to the Batcave" message.

i also think most home security systems are entirely useless.

Didn't you used to work for a place that sold home security systems?

(xpost)not the worst idea I've ever heard. Should also be some way to alert car-breaker-inner that an alarm has been tripped without all the "BEEEEP BEEEEP BEEEP, MIN-RRR MIN-RRR MIN-RRR MIN-RRR, WA WA WA WA WA WA!!!!"

er yeah that. (all of this being xposts of sorts, dammit quit posting before I'm done)

I believe that the courts have decided that car alarms which respond with lethal force are illegal.

bo-ring

PS: Damned liberals!

The more studies on car alarms vs. car and property theft I read, the more annoyed I get. (Particularly since the offender -- the only one for blocks, I should add -- is now parked right under my window. I can see his little blue light flashing, proudly telling me that the device is armed. Oh joy.) Car alarms don't stop crime at all, some claim they actually contribute to it, and they are generally regarded as a nuisance. Many communities (yannow, like New York City) have tried to ban them, but none have succeeded. The immutable legal principal they keep running up against is basically that this is Amurrica, and we have been given permission from on high to make money selling any damn fool thing we want. I believe there must be stone tablets somewhere that say that. In ancient Hebrew.

Actually, it's not a legal principle at all -- it's perfectly legal to ban car alarms. Hell, it's legal to ban honking your car horn, if you want to get all nutty. the trouble is more a matter of the (get this) powerful car alarm lobby. No shit. Curiouser and curiouser, I tell ya.

Car security should fire up and announce "you are currently being filmed. This film is being sent to a back to base security centre". And it really should - so the car gets done over, whatever - now you have proof who did it, why dont cars have that?

PS this is why I hate cars and dont drive /momus.

why dont cars have that?

Price. Cheaper to put a noisemaker in. More profitable to charge $50 from this state-of-the-art piece of equipment:

http://static.howstuffworks.com/gif/car-alarm-sidewinder.jpg

You can tell by the packaging that this piece of technology ROCKS. *air guitar*

I don't drive Momus either, but my car still gets broken in.

The trick is to drive, like, a light blue 1993 Tercel, and keep it dirty. Those fast food wrappers all over the floorboards aren't garbage, oh no. It's all a clever ruse.

Suburban annoyances: what next!

I don't know about burbs, but in a dense urban neighborhood like this one, when your car goes into freak mode at 3 in the morning, you may have just woken a hundred or so people out of a dead sleep. NOT COOL, BRAH. NOT COOL.

Car security should fire up and announce "you are currently being filmed. This film is being sent to a back to base security centre". And it really should - so the car gets done over, whatever - now you have proof who did it, why dont cars have that?

this reminds me of a kids in the hall sketch.

kenan do you remember that SNL fake commercial for a car that looked crazily shitty on the outside, but was like a rolls royce on the inside?

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

It would be better if your car keychain that you lock/unlock doors with, if THAT thing started beeping instead of the car itself (which you are far away from and the sound may be anyone's car, really). I just had this idea! Just now! /Phillipé

If one buys a car w/such an alarm, can it be deactivated? And why do some cars *honk* when they are unlocked via keychain? It always makes me fear I have made a driving error and makes horns themselves somewhat diluted in power? The BIRD is my only line of defense as it stands.