30 ms·

Why do they still make car alarms? (2015)

• josefresco 6y ago
  I'd rather see a tracking system attached to several parts of the vehicle. This would allow law enforcement to track the vehicle, and/or the parts if the vehicle is broken down and sold. In the United States we have "LoJack" but it's not a standard feature rather a dealer upsell.
  • MaxBarraclough 6y ago
    You could buy a tracker device for this purpose. Presumably it would be possible to repurpose an old smartphone to do the job. There's also the question of who you want tracking your movements.
  • nexuist 6y ago
    Tesla probably has the best solution to this so far; they have cameras around the car that record movement and send it to the cloud. A tracking system would work only until thieves figure out how to disable it; at which point it just becomes another part to sell. The Tesla solution is nice because it live streams the carjacking to the owner, enabling them to pick out details about the thief that could be useful to arresting them. Of course, Teslas also have GPS tracking on top of this.
    • dont__panic 6y ago
      Wait, so parked Teslas always record videos of me when I walk by? That does not sound legal in quite a few places.
      • aronpye 6y ago
        You’re in a public place, have no reasonable expectation to privacy, and the recording is not intrusive, so perfectly legal.
        • lights0123 6y ago
          "quite a few places" can mean "not the US".
        • harperlee 6y ago
          At least in Spain* it does not work like that, there are very stringent limitations on what you can record on the street, e.g. through dashcams or tesla sentinel mode: https://www.aepd.es/sites/default/files/2019-09/informe-juridico-rgpd-camaras-on-board.pdf https://www.aepd.es/sites/default/files/2019-09/informe-juri... For example, you can't use dashcam recordings of an accident in trial. * And I don't want to spend a bunch of time reading law but quite sure this is very tied in with GDPR, so I'd say that most probably in all Europe everything you record on the street is still subject to the privacy rights of whomever you record.
          • andai 6y ago
            > you can't use dashcam recordings of an accident in trial. Doesn't this entirely defeat the purpose of having a dashcam?
            • dharmab 6y ago
              No, because an insurance claim is usually not a trial.
            • sml156 6y ago
              For most people yes, If your willing to take matters into your own hands no.
          • akadruid1 6y ago
            I don't think it's always part how GDPR is implemented in national laws. I believe it's admissable in court here in the UK, certainly my dashcam footage of a crash caused by a drink driver in 2019 was collected as evidence by police officers at the scene.
            • harperlee 6y ago
      • x86_64Ubuntu 6y ago
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dos8fRzBH24 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dos8fRzBH24
      • xeromal 6y ago
        It's not legal in Germany and probably a few other countries but its perfectly legal here in the US.
        • sumedh 6y ago
          So are the cameras in Teslas in Germany disabled?
          • xeromal 6y ago
            It might be the ones sold in germany. You may be able to bring one in with it enabled.
          • xeromal 6y ago
            https://www.dw.com/en/dashcams-in-germany-permissible-in-court-court-rules/a-43788494 https://www.dw.com/en/dashcams-in-germany-permissible-in-cou... Looks like it has been updated for a few years.
      • mumblemumble 6y ago
        In the USA, as long as you're not recording audio and it's not in a place where people have a reasonable expectation of privacy, clandestine video surveillance is A-OK.
        • lotsofpulp 6y ago
          I don’t know why cars don’t come with built in dash cams yet. Seems like there is huge demand for it.
          • fletchowns 6y ago
            I think it's only a matter of time before all new cars come with front and rear facing cameras. I think the next step after that would be some sort of reporting system. Seems kinda crazy I can click a button to report somebody cheating in a video game but I can't press a button in my car to report soembody for extremely unsafe driving.
          • cortesoft 6y ago
            Teslas do. Just plug in a USB drive and it starts recording.
            • filoeleven 6y ago
              That’s a good move. I have a Subaru with the EyeSight system for lane detection, adaptive cruise control, etc. It’s annoying that the cameras are RIGHT THERE and always on, and they even store a 22-second history that can be accessed by police or insurance in case of a crash, but I, as the vehicle owner with a vested interest in access to the feed, have no way of tapping into it and storing it for myself.
              • mandelbrotwurst 6y ago
                How do police or insurance access it?
                • 6y ago
    • moistbar 6y ago
      You can't stream video from the car to the app, not yet at least. It's rumored to be coming in a future update, but it's not here yet.
    • bdowling 6y ago
      There is at least one Youtube channel, Wham Bam Teslacam [0], dedicated to publishing Tesla camera recordings of thieves, vandals, and other incidents. [0] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbMoDtZ6Ani-eyHzCvxeVCw https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbMoDtZ6Ani-eyHzCvxeVCw
    • overscore 6y ago
      This implies that Tesla can view the vicinity and location of your car at any time. Is that true? That would completely destroy any desire to own one.
      • lotsofpulp 6y ago
        This is one example of when it’s useful: https://www.reddit.com/r/SALEM/comments/l0nohv/mischievous_at_winco/ https://www.reddit.com/r/SALEM/comments/l0nohv/mischievous_a...
        • overscore 6y ago
          I don't think the security benefits - while considerable - would be enough to allow a car manufacturer to surveil everywhere I go.
      • caf 6y ago
        For the video clips, you can control whether any are sent to Tesla under the data sharing options on the in-car menu system. Video is only recorded locally if Sentry mode is enabled (when parked) or Dashcam is enabled (when driving). Sentry mode prevents the car from going to sleep / opening the HV contactor, which costs a small amount of battery if it's enabled for long periods. The car's location is accessible through the app, so this is sent through Tesla's servers.
      • ggreer 6y ago
        > This implies that Tesla can view the vicinity and location of your car at any time. Is that true? I don't think the cars have the bandwidth to stream it in realtime, but they do upload bits of camera and telemetry data to help train Tesla's self-driving software. The car has settings that let you opt out of this data sharing. Regarding location data: That's true for most cars sold today and it isn't particularly new. How else would cars have turn-by-turn directions? I think it was 2011 when GM began storing GPS data from cars with OnStar. Even if you avoided owning a car with GPS, there's still the issue of automatic license plate readers. These days, the only way to guarantee that your drive won't be tracked is to steal someone else's car. If you're like most people, you carry your phone with you. That means that Apple/Google knows where you are. Ditto for your phone company and probably quite a few other companies that have apps on your phone. And if you don't have a phone or a car, you probably walk past a bunch of cameras every day (including cameras on self-driving vehicles). These cameras will only get smarter and more numerous. Privacy is dead. Most people just don't know it yet.
    • pound 6y ago
      I haven't heard that they send it to the cloud, do you have more details on it? And for even locally - you need to buy ssd and plug it in to start recording video from sentry/dashboard.
  • neuralRiot 6y ago
    It seems to me that the author of the article writes about something he has no idea, newer car alarms add real time tracking, silent alarms, geofencing, speed warnings, remote start and more. Some cars have those features as an option but sometimes you buy an used car and retrofitting them is impossible or costs half what you paid for the vehicle.
  • sparrish 6y ago
    Which can all be defeated by the car thief carrying a $100 box that blocks all kinds of wireless signals (GPS, LoJack, 4G, etc)
    • reaperducer 6y ago
      90% of car thieves aren't going to invest $100 in a fuzz box. If they had $100, they'd blow it on skag and not need to steal the car.
      • thesmok 6y ago
        From the comments on this post, it seems to me there's a big difference between US and EU car thieves. At least in Eastern Europe and Russia thieves are not just opportunists. They are organized gangs and they've got lots of 007-style equipment. Here the stock alarm/immobilizer in cars is considered worthless. If you want to keep having a car you either park it on secured lot, or install a good security system.
    • SulfurHexaFluri 6y ago
      The future is probably going to involve simply having all cameras on the streets look out for the numberplate as soon as its reported missing.
  • reaperducer 6y ago
    I'd rather see a tracking system attached to several parts of the vehicle. I'd rather not give law enforcement or anyone else the ability to "track" me on a whim. If it's stolen, I'll take the hit on my deductible and also keep my privacy. If it becomes ubiquitous, is only a matter of time before it becomes mandatory. Or, the car maker sells your data and pretends that doing so helps offset the cost of making the car, the way the TV makers do. That said, my wife's car came with a tracker. It was free when we bought the car. Around the fourth year, we got a letter in the mail stating that it would suddenly cost $40/month, and if we didn't pay, we could no longer be tracked. Sounded good to me!
    • lotsofpulp 6y ago
      > I'd rather not give law enforcement or anyone else the ability to "track" me on a whim I assume license plate readers make that moot, especially in areas with toll roads.
      • naavis 6y ago
        Believe it or not, many countries do not have toll roads.
    • tenebrisalietum 6y ago
      If you have a cell phone with active cellular service then you might as well have a tracking system on your car and derive some sort of benefit, as you're already being tracked and you already don't have your privacy.
      • reaperducer 6y ago
        You make assumptions about my behavior. I don't bring my phone with me unless it's truly necessary.
        • unsui 6y ago
          I'd say that's a fair assumption for the vast majority of people who drive and have mobile phones, given the ubiquity of mobile phones and the likelihood that most people will carry their phones with them at all times (myself included). Thus, it would be your behavior which would be considered anomalous. So yes, definitely an assumption, although not an unwarranted one.
  • sithadmin 6y ago
    >and/or the parts if the vehicle is broken down and sold. In the US, there's a product/service called Phantom Footprints that many dealers offer as an add-on. They affix tamper-evident stickers (the sort that leave a 'tattoo' if removed)/laser engrave a unique identifier that ties the vehicles/parts back to the owner in a database maintained by Phantom Footprints. On some vehicles, getting it installed and registering can even get you a discount on car insurance.
    • gwillen 6y ago
      I'm pretty skeptical of the value of this gimmick, but my impression is that dealers get big kickbacks to push it. When I bought my car, I tried to opt-out of Phantom Footprints (as I did with every single overpriced extra), and they ended up giving it to me for free.
  • 01100011 6y ago
    I don't know if that would help. There are enough independent auto repair shops out there who don't care and would provide a market for stolen parts.
  • closeparen 6y ago
    Unless very many stolen cars are pinging from the same location, police are unlikely to care.
  • TwoBit 6y ago
    Teslas are literally the least stolen car in USA and often retrieved when they are stolen. It's partly the built-in tracking, partly the PIN to drive feature, and partly that its parts market is weak for various reasons.
• ryanmercer 6y ago
  If you have your car at the mall or are in a big city parking garge, sure it doesn't do much. If you live in the rest of the United States, which is spread out and some quite rural, a car alarm can quickly notify you someone is messing with your car. My town has a population a little over 300 people, we have one resident that is... not well... that rides his bicycle around even int he dead of winter and pounds on peoples doors screaming that the government is coming (he did this Saturday to a woman who finally called the county sheriff), a few weeks ago he pulled a battery out of a forklift at a local business's dock and proceeded to smash it on security camera, rides up to people that are out and about screaming nonsense at them, etc. Then factor in "kids being kids", the people that were spotlight poaching deer from the highway - shooting in the direction of houses - a month or so ago, etc and car alarms are just one of those handful of things that actually do come in handy in some places. Even in high school in the early 2000s I had someone break into my car in the driveway at night in a cookie-cutter edition and go through my car. With an alarm we'd have known they were doing it. Several years later I had someone crawl under my truck, cut the fuel line, and after taking all the gas they could get using a piece of tape to try and hold it back in place (I actually had this in my Facebook memories yesterday), a car alarm may have alerted me to that. Then my mother's boyfriend passed away around the same time. Someone flat out stole his decades old beater out of the driveway at night, again an alarm would have alerted them to it. Unfortunately for the thief the brakes barely worked and they didn't get very far before plowing into another car and taking off on foot. Car alarms definitely serve a purpose, and I don't need Popular Mechanics to justify them or not.
  • u801e 6y ago
    > If you live in the rest of the United States, which is spread out and some quite rural, a car alarm can quickly notify you someone is messing with your car. That really depends if you're close enough to the car, or in a building that makes it easy to hear noises coming from a parking lot. If I go to a mall or a big box store, I'm not going to hear my car alarm going off and other people are going to largely ignore it (since they've experienced so many false alarms in the past). Car alarm systems should be silent and sent an alert to your phone so that you know someone is doing something to your vehicle and can check on it in a timely fashion.
• hedora 6y ago
  I really wish there was a way to disable the panic button on my key fob. It has a hair trigger and only requires one click to activate. I regularly trigger it by bending over with my keys in my pocket.
  • TheAdamist 6y ago
    My last key fob had the panic button on the back which was flat, and promptly had a coin taped over it. New fob unfortunately doesn't allow that, but it's recessed a bit more and is less likely to be hit. Useless feature is like to disable as well.
  • j_walter 6y ago
    You can always desolder it from the board...most fobs open up pretty easily.
  • tomchuk 6y ago
    Depending on the make, this could be something you could disable via app/ODB dongle. I use the Carista app/BT dongle and have used it to disable the panic button on my last two Toyoyas.
    • moistbar 6y ago
      > this could be something you could disable via app/ODB dongle Ol' Dirty Bastard sure knows his way around cars, I tell ya.
      • mumblemumble 6y ago
        Even my car mechanic calls it ODB.
  • mikestew 6y ago
    If you don't feel like desoldering, just fill the button depression with epoxy. It's what we did with our Scion xB. And then it would start panicking on its own, at which point we returned to the dealer and told them to take the whole damned thing out. Which they did without charge.
• svachalek 6y ago
  Last time I got car insurance (a year ago?) I believe they still asked if it had an alarm, implying they still give a discount for it. Do insurance companies think it actually matters? Or do they just get kickbacks from alarm companies?
  • Topgamer7 6y ago
    Insurance companies are in theory statistics companies. They collect data on data points to infer where cost savings can be. Although in practice they are money making companies, and likely use statistics to find ways to upsell you. So once upon a time car alarms were rarer, and they could charge more if you didn't have one.
  • rconti 6y ago
    I get like a 92 cent discount for having "passive restraints" (airbags), so... if you get a discount for an alarm, it's gotta be tiny.
  • ska 6y ago
    Here they ask if you have alarm or immobilizer. They offer a discount because they work, statistically. Over time fewer cars have audible alarms, but most have at least basic immobilizers these days. I think all the north american vehicles after late 90s early 00s have at least a basic immobilizer.
  • tehwebguy 6y ago
    Mine still asks about "daytime running lights"
  • nucleardog 6y ago
    Besides what other people have said, consider also that just because they’re asking about having an alarm doesn’t mean they actually care about whether there’s an alarm directly. It just means there’s some statistical correlation between alarm presence and risk. It could be a case of “people who add aftermarket alarms are more likely to be conscientious about not leaving their vehicle where it’s likely to be broken into in the first place” or “people who go through the expense of adding aftermarket alarms tend to do so because if multiple prior break-ins, and may be doing something (e.g., leaving things in the car) that increase the risk”.
• psmithsfhn 6y ago
  better, why do they still make car horns?
  • switch007 6y ago
    To alert other people about your presence. What would you do if a car was reversing and it looked highly probably they are going to hit you? Or when driving round blind bends on single track roads? It has very valid use cases, it just happens to be abused by idiots quite often
    • jxramos 6y ago
      I think it's actually illegal not to have an operational horn. Sound travels faster than cars so it's a great mechanism to communicate presence during an emergency.
    • andai 6y ago
      Ah.. so the real question is, why do they still make idiots?
  • Triv888 6y ago
    One problem with car horn is the cars that beep it every time you lock your doors...
    • fred_is_fred 6y ago
      Almost every car that has the ability to disable this, including my 2004 Subaru. The method was strange and complicated but it did work.
      • Triv888 6y ago
        but many people don't and when you live in a dense area, horns beep all the time, often because of that.
      • brobinson 6y ago
• time0ut 6y ago
  Headline needs a (2015).
• dangerboysteve 6y ago
  In large cities people ignore car alarms and are more and likely going to attract a brick through the window from pissed of neighbors. The biggest issue is people with car alarms have the sensitivity so low anything triggers them. I used to live in a condo, owned a Fatboy and when I fired up the bike and rode up the underground parkade 6-10 cars alarms would go off.
  • coryrc 6y ago
    Congrats on finding something more disruptive than car alarms.
    • dangerboysteve 6y ago
      well I had muffled pipes, not straight pipes and I never gunned the bike with people around or at stop lights. In the parkade I would put around. The reason for the alarms going off was the resonance and vibration of the bike with its crappy rubber engine mounts. I have always found tuner cars with their fat pipe exhausts way worse.
  • vocram 6y ago
    You meant sensitivity so _high_?
    • esrauch 6y ago
      I think this is a case like high/low granularity or bi/semi- annual where either directions are sometimes used mean either meanings.
  • inetknght 6y ago
    Your loud-ass vehicle shouldn't be legal.
    • 01100011 6y ago
      Seriously. I've been considering bricking a couple of the street racers in my neighborhood lately. One of the idiots likes to rev the engine to vent his frustration as he drives back and forth looking for parking. The funny thing is, a lot of the loud cars aren't even that fast. My 2.4L SUV beats a lot of those fools sporting straight pipes.
• buckminster 6y ago
  House alarms are worse. People take their car alarms to work with them but the house alarms are here all day.
• buro9 6y ago
  > This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io Is Popular Mechanics just a SEO site?! That was in a hidden piece of HTML at the end of the article: <div class="screen-reader-only">
  • chc 6y ago
    Based on that note's placement in the page, "this content" appears to refer to the newsletter signup form.
• mikeryan 6y ago
  As someone who's car has been broken into several times, to steal "stuff" it seems there's a market for something to prevent property theft from within a car. I don't know what it is and maybe cameras like Owl are the solution but I'd pay good money to keep my car from being broken into.
  • idlewords 6y ago
    This is why I tore out my backseat and replaced it with beehives.
• thelean12 6y ago
  Anyone with a car alarm enabled in a city is just straight up rude and inconsiderate. I can't imagine the mindset involved for someone to put a device outside someone's bedroom window that will somewhat randomly start blasting loud sounds at all hours of the night. I'd support legislation making it illegal. Why are car alarms exempt from noise ordinances?
  • 6nf 6y ago
    I think there are some laws - you're not allowed to have an alarm that wails for hours on end for example, it's gotta stop in a few minutes.
    • coding123 6y ago
      Even if it goes off for 1 second it basically ruins sleep.
      • ikiris 6y ago
        You can always vote in someone who believes in basic policing
    • treeman79 6y ago
      Marched in a band. We set off so many car alarms during practice. Have also seen two cars next to each other that keep setting each other off. That was not a fun night.
  • nefitty 6y ago
    Imagine this, but coming from an industrial building. During the lockdown, it seems like the office space across the street from my house lacked maintenance/security people. There were times when an alarm at the building would go off, and literally stay on for a day or more. Maybe they forgot to pay their ADT bill...
    • thewebcount 6y ago
      This happens to houses in my area all the time. Either the owner is on vacation, or has moved out, but it hasn't sold or the new owner hasn't moved in, and some alarm or other starts going off. Sometimes it's the annoying smoke alarm "replace the battery beep" once per minute. Sometimes it's something more annoying. I usually call the police or fire department and let them know. That's the only way I've found to make it stop.
• serjester 6y ago
  > Car theft rates have been since declining ever since, going from about 1.6 million annual incidents in the 1990s to around 800,000 in 2014. > Cars have gotten impossible to steal I’m confused how he makes this claim given his own statistic. So are all car thefts done with sophisticated hacking given the RFID tech is 25 years old? Still seems like a problem to me.
  • mr_tristan 6y ago
    Because most thefts are probably of older vehicles. https://www.iii.org/fact-statistic/facts-statistics-auto-theft https://www.iii.org/fact-statistic/facts-statistics-auto-the... > The Honda Civic was the most frequently stolen passenger vehicle in 2017, with 45,062 thefts among all model years of this car, according to the National Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB). The bureau notes that most of these thefts were older models that lack the anti-theft technology of today’s models. In fact, there were 6,707 thefts of the 1998 model year Civic, but only 388 of the 2017 Civics. But, never underestimate the sheer incompetence of car owners: > More alarming is the finding that there were 229,339 vehicle thefts with keys or fobs left in the vehicles between January 1, 2016 and December 31, 2018. I don't know how many times I've read a nextdoor article that states: 1. the car was stolen or broken into, but, 2.) they didn't lock their 90s-era Honda.
    • treeman79 6y ago
      Me and some friends went to movies, left my car behind. An old truck. We came back to finding the truck on other side of road. After much WTF. Friends dad comes out and let us know he moved it due to street sweeper. His same brand, but Older and different Model truck key fit mine.
      • olyjohn 6y ago
        Like most keys, there are only a limited number of possible combinations. There are literally thousands of cars on the road that use the exact same keys not to mention, as the tumblers get older, and you keys wear down, they become less picky about unlocking for other keys.
• xnomad 6y ago
  Is nobody going to mention the hilarious typo in this article? "mechanics plug in to asses"
  • mynegation 6y ago
    I was going to comment on it but did search first and found your comment. It is hilariously funny but more to the general theme of HN is a notable example of a typo that cannot be caught with a simple spellchecker and probably not even more complicated grammatical checker, but some kind of neural network maybe?
• alkonaut 6y ago
  Most likely thing to be stolen from my car is probably wheels, catalytic converter. Both of these require jacking up the car, shoving some bricks under it, and stripping the parts in a matter of minutes. All I need from an alarm is something that takes care of that scenario. If someone steals it the car they have - as the article says - likely done it the easiest way: they walked in my unlocked front door and took my car keys when I wasn't looking.
  • dole 6y ago
    Definitely one reason is this. I was surprised to hear about the catalytic converters recently, the amount of palladium in them is worth the risk. SUVs and trucks targeted because of higher clearance, Hondas and certain manufacturers have more in them than others. Battery-operated reciprocating saw (Sawzall), easy and fast enough to do it while you're in the grocery store.
    • thewebcount 6y ago
      My next door neighbor's catalytic converter was in the process of being stolen when the neighbor on their other side came home a few weeks ago. Luckily that scared off the would-be thieves. Needless to say, he parks his truck inside their gate now.
  • RegnisGnaw 6y ago
    Depends where you live. Where I’m living it’s also the Motor Vehicle Inspection Sticker. Here every 1/2/3 years (depending on the age) you need to get your car inspected and they give you a sticker if you pass. People steal the stickers to drive cars that either rail inspector or know it won’t pass. Last year someone broke my driver side window and manage to remove my sticker.
    • syntheticcorp 6y ago
      Do the stickers not have identifying details like the car’s plate number?
• l72 6y ago
  Now if we could just disable the feature that causes the horn to honk when locking the vehicle with the key fob... As someone who lives on a residential street, but with a hospital at the far end, we have tons of patients, families, doctors, and nurses that park on our street to avoid paying for the garage. I get to listen to horns honking at all hours. A few cars (Acura comes to mind), do a bit better, in that they have a very soft, more pleasant beep instead of honking the horn. My vehicle allows me to disable the horn honking completely, but it is buried deep in the settings, and I doubt few people would ever look for it.
  • fastball 6y ago
    My car only beeps if I press lock twice.
    • elboru 6y ago
      Some people think that the honk/beep is to confirm that the car got locked and the alarm got activated. So they will press the lock button until they hear the confirmation.
      • cpgxiii 6y ago
        It's not just "think" - some cars specifically beep in different ways depending on lock status. Recent-ish Fords beep once when locked, and beep twice quickly if a door is ajar and can't lock. It also blinks the lights to match, but the sound is much easier to recognize.
        • Spooky23 6y ago
          My Honda demands tribute when you close the rear tailgate. If you fail to provide the attention it demands, mainly waiting for the gate to fully close, it beeps 3 times and unlocks the car. Very helpful feature.
          • dwighttk 6y ago
• Blikkentrekker 6y ago
  I assume this a local cultural problem. I do not believe I have ever heard an actual car alarm go off in my life, I have only seen on television, typically in Anglo-Saxon media. So is this truly as common as the article suggests in some places?
  • thelean12 6y ago
    Since I've lived in US cities, yes. Almost daily do I hear a car alarm. Probably just a factor of: 1. More cars around me in the city than in the small town I came from. 2. More things that can set off the alarms (loud motorcycles being a big one).
    • BitwiseFool 6y ago
      Density too. I reckon there are about 200 to 300 cars in the parking garage for my apartment building. You're bound to hear one with so many cars in one place.
    • Blikkentrekker 6y ago
      I had no idea. How do people sleep then, if this is so common?
      • ghaff 6y ago
        People in dense cities learn to deal with it one way or another. Somewhere like Manhattan, I can practically guarantee you there are going to be sirens (which are probably even louder) during a given night as well.
        • desert_boi 6y ago
          Boston does this better, where if there isn't traffic, sirens aren't run. At night, sirens are relatively rare. Especially compared to Seattle and Boise where I've also lived. In Germany, I only ever heard a couple sirens the whole time I lived there, and none directly on my street.
• spiritplumber 6y ago
  I have an older RV that people sometimes try to steal (it's usually meth heads wanting to live on it; I've taken to leaving a plaque on the dash saying that if they want a hot meal instead, just knock on my door). The alarm is aftermarket, and silent. All it does is make the fuel pump go in reverse. (The fuel pump is also aftermarket) It's been hilarious a couple times.
  • monkeynotes 6y ago
    Why not just have the alarm cut the power to the ignition or something less damaging than reversing the fuel pump?
    • andy_ppp 6y ago
      I guess because the car would appear to be non-functional rather than deliberately disabled, i.e. the engine would choke and splutter but would not take you far.
      • dotancohen 6y ago
        Also, in some jurisdictions the car is not considered "stolen" until it has physically moved. If the engine can move the vehicle just a centimeter before stalling under the load, then the vehicle is stolen for legal purposes and that has effects on reporting to the police, insurance for broken windows or valuables missing, and even crime statistics if the OP is thinking long term. It also might enable the OP to file a complaint with his HOA, who may be responsible for ensuring that the parking lot is better protected.
        • JadeNB 6y ago
          > Also, in some jurisdictions the car is not considered "stolen" until it has physically moved. Leading to the hilarious situation that a thief who couldn't get my car moving was charged, not with theft, but criminal trespass.
    • kyleblarson 6y ago
• anonymousiam 6y ago
  If the author had a Ring doorbell (and looked at their crime reports), or participated on NextDoor, they would know that theft from parked cars is the number one problem in most neighborhoods. An alarm is still a good deterrent for people who do not park their cars in a garage.
  • thelean12 6y ago
    The best and only important deterrent is to not have anything to steal, especially in plain view. If everyone did this then theft from parked cars would drop to zero, and break-ins to near zero. Smash and grabbers don't care about alarms. They'll be gone in a few seconds anyway.
    • Areading314 6y ago
      Right. The alarm makes them only target the easily available junk that is in plain view. With no alarm, the thief could quietly spend 30 minutes "working on" the vehicle so they could clear out your trunk, and maybe even a few parts like the radio/GPS
      • haser_au 6y ago
        No thief is going to spend 30 minutes on a suburban street rifling through a car. If it's in a secluded parking area, or behind a building, maybe. But not on a main street with neighbours and traffic.
      • thelean12 6y ago
        AFAIK, people don't really steal stock radios anymore. Or at least, it's not very common. Your trunk should also be empty of anything valuable. There's no reason to keep much back there overnight. I guess thieves could steal my tire chains and donut right now, but that hardly seems worth the trouble.
        • issamehh 6y ago
          Jokes on any thief that tries to steal from my trunk. I don't really care about any of the junk in there other than maybe my jumper cables and tool set. Have fun sorting through all of the extra stuff to find them in time
• underseacables 6y ago
  I always figured it was more peace of mind than actual protection.
• betwixthewires 6y ago
  There's an effect, I forget what it's called, where a deterrent is effective enough that the only time you see it activate is accidentally. I believe this may be the case for car alarms. It has a side effect of desensitization, but it is still effective. I doubt most thieves smash and grab without consideration of alarms on the grounds that probably nobody will care about the alarm. Thieves want to steal without being noticed. The real threat of a giant siren bringing attention to them with a towel wrapped around their hand standing next to a shattered window deters a lot of opportunistic theft. It isn't quantifiable, but it is no doubt there. Determined thieves of course will find a way, or find less secure targets. But most theft is opportunistic.
  • BurningFrog 6y ago
    > There's an effect, I forget what it's called Reminds me of the "why are you dieting/exercising, you're not fat?" fallacy. Don't know the name of that either.
  • paulgb 6y ago
    It's not the effect you're talking about, but it reminded me of a study that found that the value of Lojack (an early GPS-enabled car theft tracker) decreased car theft for everyone in cities where it became prevalent, since would-be car thieves were reluctant to steal any car knowing that it might have a tracker. [1] https://www.nber.org/digest/jul97/lojack-benefits-all-car-owners-its-area https://www.nber.org/digest/jul97/lojack-benefits-all-car-ow...
  • meekrohprocess 6y ago
    Maybe you could take advantage of that by putting a blue LED on your dashboard or rear-view mirror that blinks every few seconds when the car is off. Speaking of, I'm surprised that there aren't more prank automotive devices. What if your car's horn went off semi-randomly twice a month, with a different horn sound each time? Or your turn signals made loud clicking noises that everyone could hear? Or your Bluetooth calls also broadcasted through the car alarm speaker on Wednesdays? There's plenty of room for innovation in the car alarm space.
  • w0mbat 6y ago
• lmilcin 6y ago
  I think the main issue is that the alarms themselves are piece of shit. They get activated when you look at it the wrong way and sometimes not even that is necessary. Good alarm is something unique. You need something that the thief sees for the first time and not something that is mass produced and installed in millions of cars. When a thief sees something for the first time, they are going to pass for an easier target that is not going to surprise them. I have a plaque on my driver side door. It says "I am electronics engineer and I designed the alarm myself."
• unit_circle 6y ago
  Better question: Why are all aftermarket car alarms crap with crap apps? There is definitely an opportunity here to make something that doesn't suck. If you added a couple of cameras and used ML I think you could build a much better product.
• Tade0 6y ago
  I cheaped out on the alarm in a car I leased in late 2015 and not two years went by until it got stolen - using the most primitive of methods at that. Fortunately the insurance money was enough for a down payment on the same model, but highest trim possible - this time including an alarm and GAP. I've been parking it in the same places and so far it's still with me. I think that while an alarm won't stop a thief, these people do tend to look for easy targets.
• chmod600 6y ago
  With my key it's pretty easy to activate the "panic" feature. It seems like a reasonable feature for someone walking through empty parking lots at night, but it also causes a lot of false alarms.
• King-Aaron 6y ago
  I've been wanting to set up a little raspberry pi or arduino to act as an alarm, which can first play 'welcome to the jungle' and then roll the windows up and lock all the doors, before starting the car, turning the wheel to full lock and just sitting on the rev limiter.
• dtgriscom 6y ago
  I had an MR-2 for seventeen years, and I hacked my own engine disable system. If you started the car without the (non-heating) cigarette lighter pushed in, then the car would run fine for 30 seconds, and then the fuel gauge would go to zero and ten seconds later the car would die. I loved the idea, until the system became flakey and I found myself time and again frantically pumping the cigarette lighter, hoping to get it to behave. I finally removed it. (Ah, youth...)
• whyenot 6y ago
  I was getting my car serviced at a local Toyota dealership today. While I was waiting for my car, there were two Priuses that came in with stolen/hacked off catalytic converters. A Prius with a really loud "straight pipe" exhaust is awful weird. In any case, auto theft isn't about stealing the whole car, sometimes it's just hacking off the valuable bits without even breaking in. It's not a new problem. Before catalytic converters, it was taking hood ornaments or wheels. Car alarms, at least the ones that alarm when the car is jolted or moved, are just about the only thing I can think of that can help deter this type of theft.
  • dotancohen 6y ago
    Many people weld a cage around the cats, or across them. Of course, the cage can be cut just like the cat, but it makes a 3 minute job turn into a 10 minute job, which may be riskier for the thief.
    • w0mbat 6y ago
      The current technology is to weld or rivet a specially shaped flat steel shield over the cat. It is more secure than an cage and actually improves the car's aero-dynamics.
      • TwoBit 6y ago
        The problem with these is that they are all made of aluminum and are easily cut through. My next door neighbor last month in fact.
  • asdff 6y ago
    I don't think car alarms are even a deterrent anymore. They go off so much. I mean I don't run to the windows when I hear one go off. Do you? Certainly the angle grinder taking off the catalytic converter makes a huge racket. The truth is these sounds are normalized in an urban environment.
• FalconSensei 6y ago
  > THE CAR ALARM IS BOTH INEFFECTIVE AND ANNOYING. IT'S ALSO UNNEEDED. I'm not sure which definition of unneeded the author is using, but I would say car thefts makes them needed? Could say they are ineffective, but still needed
  • recursive 6y ago
    Are magic anti-theft spells also needed?
    • FalconSensei 6y ago
      We need some solution. Alarms are the only solution we have at the moment. So, until there's something else, alarms are necessary
      • recursive 6y ago
        If alarms stopped existing, the problem would not be any worse. So alarms are not necessary.
        • FalconSensei 6y ago
          says who?
          • recursive 6y ago
            The original article, me, and a few others in this comment section.
            • FalconSensei 6y ago
              > It's also unneeded: it's nearly impossible to start a modern car without the key. > But, as Roger Morris at the National Insurance Crime Bureau explained to me, guys will "break in, roll the car to a vacant lot, and strip it for parts. Breaking into cars is a billion-dollar business." In Brazil they rob the sound system, and other things, in place. Maybe that's more common with older cars, that only had a CD player, but it happens. With my sister's car, they just broke down the door (like, folded it down a bit), stole the stereo, the CDs, and other stuff that was inside. You know those car stereos that you could take the front off? A friend of my parents did that. They keyed the car, screwed with the door, and wrote that the stereo would have been cheaper... So yeah, I would say that an alarm might have helped in those cases.
• spike021 6y ago
  I was out washing my car yesterday morning on a quiet residential street (parallel parked at the curb) and a pickup truck was parked at the next spot behind mine. Suddenly as I'm washing the rear bumper/trunk area the truck's alarm blares at my back. The neighbor across the street finally turned it off and said "oh sorry I don't even know why they have an alarm button on the key fob." I just shook my head. It's unnecessary but there really need to be better ways to handle locks. Also FWIW, not sure why the guy didn't just unlock it at the handle since he drove off anyway, instead of unlocking it all the way from the doorway of his house.
  • brewdad 6y ago
    Some vehicles will unlock the door with the fob in your pocket when you touch the handle. Many vehicles still require you to touch an unlock button on the fob even when standing at the door. It would have made it even more awkward as the car screams at both of you though.
  • banana_giraffe 6y ago
    Ahh yep. I call it the "idiot button", as in "I'm an idiot, I pressed this button by mistake" Ages ago, on a previous car, it was stupid easy for me to hit, for whatever reason. I got pissed off enough I ended up taking the fob apart and destroying the contact over that button. Thankfully my current car has an option to turn off the beep on lock, and doesn't have a panic button.
• SCAQTony 6y ago
  I am not trying to be a smart ass but how about "find my car" for the police via GPS unit powered by the alternator?
• dsego 6y ago
  The alarm on my new car sends me an email and a notification through the manufacturers mobile app if it gets activated.
• naikrovek 6y ago
  To make the owner of the vehicle feel better. That's all they were ever for.
  • DaiPlusPlus 6y ago
    And insurance companies to add a risk adjustment, just like with “do you park your car in a garage?”
• dmckeon 6y ago
  Why? Because fear is known to be an effective sales tool. Just ask a very successful marketer of car alarms: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darrell_Issa#Business_career https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darrell_Issa#Business_career
• tomxor 6y ago
  I wonder what proportion of break ins and vandalism were caused by car alarms? When your sleep is completely ruined at 3am for the 4th night in a row you start to have serious thoughts of hunting down and trashing whatever car is causing it to prevent it from happening again... Noise and lack of sleep drives people to extremes no matter how civil and law abiding they may normally be, it will definitely have happened.
  • twoWhlsGud 6y ago
    Doonesbury July, 1991: https://www.gocomics.com/doonesbury/1991/07/28 https://www.gocomics.com/doonesbury/1991/07/28
• joeblow21 6y ago
  Why are they still sold? Because dealerships can pre install them and sell them.
• vzaliva 6y ago
  The answer to the question is "because people are buying them". It is as simple as a supply-demand economy 101. Why people are bying them? Perhaps even if the alarms are not effective they give owners peace of mind, which is good enough reason for them to exist.
• lb1lf 6y ago
  At least in my jurisdiction (Norway), you install a car alarm because your insurance company still gives you a discount if you have an approved alarm installed. The cheapest, approved alarm I could find for my beater (an old Land Cruiser) was approx. $200. That translated into a $80/annum discount. Additionally, I leave the doors unlocked to save any would-be thief the trouble of breaking a window to gain entry. There's nothing valuable inside, anyway.
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• rbirkby 6y ago
  > Davis Adams, who works at Honda and drives an S2000, told me about a Lotus Elise he used to own that had a motion sensor. "If you locked the door, and moved your hand in the open air," he said, "the alarm would go off. So if you left a dog in the car, or someone leaned in the open convertible to look, it'd trigger the alarm." 20 year Lotus Elise owner here. I have had thieves slash the roof and and steal items. And I would never leave a dog alone in it.
• 2rsf 6y ago
  Loud alarms are illegal in Israel, OTH car theft is a big problem there. The solutions range from immobilizers to GPS trackers being mandatory by insurers, but thieves became smart as well, they know how to bypass an immobilizer in seconds, tear off the GPS tracker moments after they reached an unpopulated area and the best ones come with a replacement engine computer to bypass other built in safeguards.
• fossuser 6y ago
  I’m surprised to see no comment of Tesla’s sentry mode. It texts you, it records video footage from all around the car. If broken into it plays loud music on the speakers. It works great and is what modern alarms should be.
• ivanche 6y ago
  I still remember a low-tech theft prevention device my friend invented for personal use. He stuck a 100 or so needles into a cushion and upon leaving the car he'd leave the cushion on driver's seat with needles' tips facing upwards. From the outside it looks like a normal cushion but if a thief is to sit on it...
• nimbius 6y ago
  The real answer: insurance companies and fleets in the early 90s. Fleet vehicles in the 90s were high theft targets. Common keyed in most cases and sparsely tracked. As part of insurance provider crackdowns cars were required to be fitted with alarms so fleet lot security guards would be alerted to theft. Rental companies responded by demanding alarms in their fleet cars, and manufacturers complied. In 2020 a rental car is basically a rolling eye of the god argus. Everything gets tracked. these alarms are also used at ports of call and container shipping lots for new cars, although they're less meaningful since most new cars ship on a 'transit' mode that locks the car to 5mph until a dealer unlocks the firmware.