181–190 of 535 posts
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.
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 bein…
Reminds me of the "why are you dieting/exercising, you're not fat?" fallacy. Don't know the name of that either.
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…
Cars in Europe don’t honk on open/close. It’s not illegal but there are some non honk areas and because of that manufactures don’t enable it.
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.
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…
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.
>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 registerin…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wait, so parked Teslas always record videos of me when I walk by? That does not sound legal in quite a few places.
It's not legal in Germany and probably a few other countries but its perfectly legal here in the US.
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.
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.
I am amused that you think a realistic understanding of crime statistics can be formed by reading NextDoor.
GP isn't saying that's the only crime problem in the world, or the worst. GP is saying that this is the number one problem in neighborhoods. Based on what I'm seeing in my neighborhood (SV), this is 100% true.
People are also stealing packages, but the monetary loss in those cases is much less than the cost of replacing or repairing vehicles that have been stolen or broken into.