Car Alarms

[rbnyc]

I don't know why, but lately I've been way more sensitive to car alarms going off on my block overnight. They wake me up and keep me awake almost every night. They're going off 7 to 10 times per night and it sometimes takes the owner more than 5 minutes to turn it off.

I think that car alarms do nothing to protect a car from theft. When an alarm goes off no one thinks, uh-oh, someone's trying to take someone's car, better call the police. People think, @#$%&#$ I'm so sick of that %$$@&ing alarm.

What do you think?

Car alarms are...

[GOPisEvil]

1. They have exactly ONE use:

lowering car insurance premiums.

But, for you dolts who set your alarms with too high a sensitivity so that they go off in a stiff breeze: :spank:

[rbnyc]

2. spanking is too good for them.

;-)

:hi:

:loveya:

Time to start work. See ya' later.

[GOPisEvil]

3. Heh! True!

:hi::loveya:

[ithacan]

4. I remember one that went off for 14 hours!!!

on the upper west side. I'm not sure why the windshield was not smashed, but the car had a lot of nasty notes on it.

[rbnyc]

6. Yikes!

Amazing the car wasn't trashed.

[ithacan]

12. believe me,

I was ready to, but my wife restrained me... We ended up just internalizing our frustration and anger, along with all the other neighbors... :grr:

[RoyGBiv]

5. Worse Than Useless

The front of my apartment faces a carport where my upstairs neighbor and I park our cars. My neighbor's car has a Viper alarm -- I know this because the freakin' thing identifies itself when it goes off, is turned on, off, or even when it's just feeling perky I think -- and, until recently, it went off at least twice a night, usually when a stray animal got near it.

She's a reasonable sort and at my polite, blurry-eyed suggestion started deactivating her alarm when she parks it at home. A couple weeks ago I heard some strange noises out near our cars, and since the blaring of the car alarm didn't obscure the noise, I looked out and saw two teenagers whom I knew didn't live there. We'd experienced several incidents of vandalism, but no one had been able to catch those doing it.

I called the police, and when they arrived, they found the teenagers down by one of the fences removing some of its planks and breaking them. They were taken into custody.

Had they set off the car alarm, I never would have looked outside.

[rbnyc]

7. Right.

The alarm goes off and it's just par for the course. You pretty much do everything you can to ignore it.

:grr:

[Kathleen04]

8. Car alarms suck..

They go off all the time for no reason and nobody looks to see if there is a theft occurring because they go off so often.

My mother used to have one in her car and somehow it malfunctioned and wouldn't stop..my father had to tear out the wires to get it to stop, which also took out the lights inside the car!

I think car alarms have actually become less popular since they first came out because people are realizing how ineffective they are.

[OneBlueSky]

9. hate 'em, hate 'em, hate 'em . . .

did I mention that I hate 'em? . . . there's a guy up the street whose alarm goes off in the middle of the night at least once or twice a month . . . he must be a sound sleeper, because it generally takes a half hour or more to get the damned thing turned off . . . hate 'em, hate 'em, hate 'em . . .

[_]

10. The prevalence of car alarms has had another effect.

They unintentionally contibuted to the rise of car jackings instead of stealing them by more "time honored" methods.

[kevinam]

11. useful, in my opinion...

I don't currently have one, but I used to. I had a Jeep Wrangler with a soft-top. After someone broke into it, did some damage, and stole some things, I felt it was necessary. I believe most car alarms have switches, so if the alarm goes off, it stops usually after a FEW minutes, as not to be a nuisance. I know my car alarm did. Also, if it was one of those nights with a nasty storm, and my alarm would go off more than once, I would usually just disarm it. I also know, that once I had my alarm installed, my car was never broken into again, coincidence?? I don't know maybe, maybe not. Frankly, I rarely hear them, and when I do, I do tend to look up. I no longer own a car with a 'soft-top', so I don't really feel an alarm is necessary. Frankly, if you are sitting in your home, and an alarm is a 'nuisance', then you have some paper thin walls, or it is a ridiculously loud alarm. I am of the opinion, that just because you can hear something doesn't make it a nuisance. Actually, what is typically worse is home alarms. They do tend to be much louder than car alarms. Also, when they go off, the home-owner tends not to be around, so it can go off for a while. My neighbors did a couple of weeks ago, and I got an hour and a half of that thing. On the same sense though, I can't blame someone for trying to protect their family and property...Kevin.