Solution to noisy vehicles

"Jim Yanik" .> wrote in message
.. .

> It's a sad commentary on our society that people would ignore an alarm or
> a
> crime-in-progress.

The problem is too many false alarms. Car alarms are so sensitive now, they
sound off at a dirty look. No way the police can chase down every car alarm
going off.

Remember the story of the boy who cried "Wolf!".

"Skip Elliott Bowman" > wrote in message
link.net...
> "Jim Yanik" .> wrote in message
> .. .
>
>> It's a sad commentary on our society that people would ignore an alarm or
>> a
>> crime-in-progress.
>
> The problem is too many false alarms. Car alarms are so sensitive now,
> they sound off at a dirty look. No way the police can chase down every
> car alarm going off.
>
> Remember the story of the boy who cried "Wolf!".
>
>
Exactly

The flamer before you seems to think that false alarms never happen. In
fact in large cities alarms go off many times a night. Burglaries are
rather rare compared to the number of false alarms (this thread began with
someone reporting on an exhaust system that was setting off alarms). If I
call the police every time an alarm goes off, I'll be put in the "crank"
category. Indeed in some jurisdictions I can be fined for this. I'm sorry
that I disgust the flamer, but he must realize that, again in cities, if I
react to EVERY car alarm, I will NEVER get a night's sleep. Ever.

Paul R

On Tue, 15 Mar 2005 17:25:14 GMT, "PaulR" >
wrote:

>BTW, I don't live in NYC either.
>

Nor do I.

>But my point was that, especially in cities cars are often parked at quite a
>distance from the owner. In that case you're counting on a neighbor to call
>the police if an alarm goes off.

My car alarm saved my car from being broken into and nobody had to
call the police. When the alarm went off, the thief ran away. It's
as simple as that.

How do I know I was saved? Because once I adjusted the sensitivity
properly, my alarm didn't go off falsely. I would know if the alarm
had gone off when I was out of earshot.

It saved me from being ripped off twice (2 real alarms in 7 years and
no false ones). Both times the thieves ran away. The first time, I
ran after their car trying to get their license plate.

>But there are so many alarms, that people
>just ignore them (except when they trash the car). Maybe the answer is to
>absolutely outlaw noisy alarms,

bad idea - alarms do deter thieves.


>while permitting (encouraging?) alarms that
>either send a silent radio alarm or telephone the owner.
>
>I'm in favor of LOTS of voltage on the inside of the car, but I realize that
>the law takes umbrage on this.


IME, car alarms used to be a problem, but except for the rare 15 year
old beater with an old alarm still on the roads, you don't here false
alarms anymore.

It is rare enough these days that when a car alarm goes off I do look
to see which piece of **** car it's going off on.

With 1 exception in recent memory, it has always been an older car.
The 1 exception was a Ford Escape (IIRC) that obviously had a problem
with the alarm. I could see the lady had her keys and could turn off
the alarm, but each time she tried to back out of her space, it would
go off.

It took her 5-10 minutes, but she finally managed to leave - I found
the whole episode kind of funny.

On 16 Mar 2005 01:38:59 GMT, Jim Yanik .> wrote:

>Well,it's not my fault people do not care about their neighbors enough to
>check on an alarm.If it were a common problem of false alarms,then action
>(alarm adjustment) should be taken,and would in my case,as I detest
>falses,too.I don't want to get up any more than the next person.
>
>But vehicles should not be so noisy as to trigger alarms.

True, and I actually kind of miss the chorus of car alarms after a big
crash of thunder. Most modern car alarms are not as susceptible to
loud noises.

On Wed, 16 Mar 2005 10:34:37 -0600,
(Matthew Russotto) wrote:

>In article >,
>Jim Yanik .> wrote:
(Matthew Russotto) wrote in
:
>>
>>> Then you should be fined for noise pollution (for the auto alarm).
>>
>>It usually only triggers the warning chirps.
>
>Smaller fine, then.
>
>>And it would not be noise pollution,as the alarm WAS triggered by
>>something.(not going off on it's own,with no external influence.)
>
>It's a false alarm and noise pollution whether it goes off entirely on
>its own or due to a benign external influence.

So you consider a few warning chirps to be noise pollution, but an old
car with loud exhaust is a "benign external influence"?

If I lived across the street from Jim and the Pontiac, I'd bet I'd be
more annoyed by the Pontiac.

But when you live in the city, you learn to live and sleep through all
sorts of noises - sirens, car alarms, motorcycles, ridiculously loud
car stereos.

> Some idiot in my old
>apartment complex used to have one which went off in the rain; that's
>an external influence too.

"Some idiot"? As in only 1 car alarm in the whole complex would go
off in a thunderstorm?

If that were about 10-15 years ago, you should consider yourself lucky
that there was only 1. If it was more recently than that, most of
the car alarms in the parking lot didn't generate false alarms.

On Thu, 17 Mar 2005 01:40:26 GMT, "PaulR" >
wrote:

> Question: If you park your car in front of my house and your
>alarm goes off, do you really expect me to react?

If I heard your daughter screaming "rape", would you really expect me
to do nothing?


>Ya know, if I were a car
>thief, I think I'd just wear ear plugs and ignore the alarm, since everyone
>else does.

Not true - if the car alarm sounds like mine (I only know what it
sounds like because I tested it - once), I will look to make sure it
is not mine.

Since car alarms hardly ever go off where I work or where I live, I
very often do look.

Last year, a pickup truck without an alarm was stolen from the parking
lot where I work, and a couple of months ago, someone took the rims
off my neighbors Escalade - I'm still wondering why his alarm didn't
go off - is it possible that some Escalades don't have alarms or that
they set it down so gently that the alarm didn't go off?

Another possibility is that the alarm did go off and I slept through
it. It's possible the owner heard it and saw what was happening, but
was unable to do anything but call the police who arrived too late to
apprehend the thieves.

> I'd expect that I'd be just as "safe" stealing an alarmed car as
>a non-alarmed car. If no one's going to react, what's the point?
>

That's a pretty big risk, especially since most cars with alarms also
have some kind of kill-switch. It's more work, and I assure you it
isn't "just as safe".

Are you willing to gamble that the owner is too far away to hear it
and that nobody else is going to look?

The question is, what will they do?

It's very likely that all they will do is call the police and give
them a vague description that's unlikely to help very much.

But a description is better than nothing. It's safer to steal the car
without the alarm.

And that truck that got stolen from the very same parking space my car
is often parked in at work? Never recovered.

I'd be a fool not to have an alarm.

>Paul R
>

On Fri, 18 Mar 2005 00:00:28 GMT, "Skip Elliott Bowman"
> wrote:

>"Jim Yanik" .> wrote in message
. ..
>
>> It's a sad commentary on our society that people would ignore an alarm or
>> a
>> crime-in-progress.
>
>The problem is too many false alarms. Car alarms are so sensitive now, they
>sound off at a dirty look. No way the police can chase down every car alarm
>going off.
>
>Remember the story of the boy who cried "Wolf!".
>

And apparently, it takes a VERY long time for some people to realize
that most of the cries of "wolf" these days are actually real.

Most of the boys who used to cry wolf have learned their lesson. How
long will people hold it against him?

On Fri, 18 Mar 2005 01:18:10 GMT, "PaulR" >
wrote:

>
>"Skip Elliott Bowman" > wrote in message
hlink.net...
>> "Jim Yanik" .> wrote in message
>> .. .
>>
>>> It's a sad commentary on our society that people would ignore an alarm or
>>> a
>>> crime-in-progress.
>>
>> The problem is too many false alarms. Car alarms are so sensitive now,
>> they sound off at a dirty look. No way the police can chase down every
>> car alarm going off.
>>
>> Remember the story of the boy who cried "Wolf!".
>>
>>
>Exactly
>
>The flamer before you seems to think that false alarms never happen.

They hardly ever happen.

> In
>fact in large cities alarms go off many times a night. Burglaries are
>rather rare compared to the number of false alarms

Not in this city, they're not. Car theft is a very real problem here.


>(this thread began with
>someone reporting on an exhaust system that was setting off alarms). If I
>call the police every time an alarm goes off, I'll be put in the "crank"
>category.

It's not that you should call the police for every car alarm you hear,
but it wouldn't hurt to look over and see if you actually see someone
breaking into it.

> Indeed in some jurisdictions I can be fined for this. I'm sorry
>that I disgust the flamer, but he must realize that, again in cities, if I
>react to EVERY car alarm, I will NEVER get a night's sleep. Ever.
>

I've lived in several large cities, but it's been a long time since
alarms (false or not) have been common. If I reacted to every car
alarm I heard, I might have lost about 10 minutes sleep in the past
year - if that.

I used to have a neighbor with an old Camaro though - really nice
liooking car (alot like this one:
<http://www.firewheelclassics.com/images/Photo_Gallery/prak2.jpg>)

That ****ing thing would wake me up every time he started it if I were
still sleeping.

It was much more of a nuisance than car alarms are these days.

>Paul R
>

Jim Yanik wrote:
> Well,it's not my fault people do not care about their neighbors enough to
> check on an alarm.If it were a common problem of false alarms,then action
> (alarm adjustment) should be taken,and would in my case,as I detest
> falses,too.I don't want to get up any more than the next person.
>
> But vehicles should not be so noisy as to trigger alarms.

If an alarm is capable of being triggered by noise (other than specific
sounds such as glass breaking), that alarm is too sensitive to have any
business being used in a residential area.

Car alarms should be required to be silent, since bystanders never pay
attention to them anyway, even when annoyed or awakended by them. Let
the alarm summon the car owner by pager, so he can arrive in time to
catch Mr. Thief in the act. If he's not willing to go and do that,
screw him.

>> decides to wait it out. So the entire neighborhood is disturbed by
>> this guy's decision to buy an alarm.

> They should be disturbed if the car is being burgled.
> Far too many people turn a blind eye to this stuff.

Third parties have a perfect right to turn a blind eye to YOUR PROBLEM.
Anyone who is wakened by someone else's car alarm should be allowed to
take an axe to the car.