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Why do they still make car alarms? (2015)

popularmechanics.com

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

#101

Post by lscotte »

l72 wrote: post #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…

That's a configurable setting off all of the last few cars we've owned. There's no need for any beeping, honking, or anything else when the lights flash, as far as I'm concerned.

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

#102

Post by boomboomsubban »

darkwater wrote: post #98
alkonaut wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are panic buttons a US thing? I never saw one on a fob in Europe?

I second this. What's a panic button?

A button on the keyring next to lock/unlock doors to start an alarm, generally honking and flashing the lights. Nearly ubiquitous on cars in the US, though personally I've never seen one activated for anything but a mistake.

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

#103

Post by dangerboysteve »

coryrc wrote: post #59
dangerboysteve wrote: post #55

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.

Congrats on finding something more disruptive than car alarms.

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.

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

#104

Post by coding123 »

6nf wrote: post #94
thelean12 wrote: post #75

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?

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.

Even if it goes off for 1 second it basically ruins sleep.

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

#105

Post by thelean12 »

Blikkentrekker wrote: post #88

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?

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).

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

#106

Post by mr_tristan »

serjester wrote: post #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.

Because most thefts are probably of older vehicles.

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.

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

#107

Post by rootusrootus »

alkonaut wrote: post #91
hedora wrote: 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.

Are panic buttons a US thing? I never saw one on a fob in Europe?

More specifically, a North American thing. They also exist in some other markets, but generally not in Europe, as you noticed.

I have no idea if they are required by some obscure law, or if it is just tradition. Probably the latter. I don't know anyone who has ever used the panic button in a panic, but almost everyone can remember hitting it by accident.

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

#108

Post by dole »

alkonaut wrote: post #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…

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.

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

#109

Post by IgorPartola »

l72 wrote: post #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…

If you are handy, it shouldn’t be difficult to rewire the car to not do that or even to add a different sound source to confirm lock/unlock. Ironically, any car alarm shop could do it for you for probably not much money.

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

#110

Post by elboru »

fastball wrote: post #92
l72 wrote: post #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…

My car only beeps if I press lock twice.

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.
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