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Why do they still make car alarms? (2015)

popularmechanics.com

81–90 of 535 posts

Re: Why do they still make car alarms? (2015)

#81
> 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.

Re: Why do they still make car alarms? (2015)

#82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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.

Believe it or not, many countries do not have toll roads.

Re: Why do they still make car alarms? (2015)

#83

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.

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…

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.

Re: Why do they still make car alarms? (2015)

#85
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.

Re: Why do they still make car alarms? (2015)

#86

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.

This is why I tore out my backseat and replaced it with beehives.

Re: Why do they still make car alarms? (2015)

#87
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.

Re: Why do they still make car alarms? (2015)

#89
post #67

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.

I wonder if there is some geographical variation in the alarm sensitivity. I rarely hear car alarms in Helsinki, the capital of Finland. I have never noticed that any slight bumps or vibrations would set car alarms off. I have even scratched a few cars in the parking lot with my own car back in the days when I had just gotten my license, and still no alarms. Car theft is relatively rare here too.

>Car theft is relatively rare here too

Well, you *are* living in a country with some of the highest economic equality in the world!

Re: Why do they still make car alarms? (2015)

#90
post #68
post #4

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.

Mazda have a pretty good key-fob for that reason... all button are are to press and small... On my Honda I triggered it all the time...

Yep I've never accidentally activated the panic on my Mazda.
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