June 08, 2013
Back in the 1980's, the first car alarms started showing up, and the very earliest ones were set up so that if they got triggered, they'd keep making noise until the owner showed up with a key. I worked for a while in an office building right next to the Alewife parking garage in Cambridge, and we could hear those going off all the time.
I remember reading a column in the Globe about one of those cars, in midwinter, parked on a city street. Its owner was on a trip, and the alarm went off and ran for hours. Finally, some anonymous neighbor (as described in the column) went out with a diagonal cutter, crawled under the car, and started cutting wires until the sound stopped.
As described, a few days later the owner came back from his trip, and called a tow truck to take the car to be repaired.
The ones requiring keys didn't last very long on the market, because cars with them tended to get vandalized. So the new plan was that it would run for 30 or 60 seconds, or even longer, and then shut itself off. That was a lot more satisfactory.
Some of them make their own noise, and some of them honk the car horn. Each is annoying in its own way.
What brings me to thinking about this is that there's a car in our parking lot with the car-horn type alarm, and it's gone off about six times today. This particular one runs about five minutes before giving up, and I'm beginning to entertain fantasies about vandalism.
Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Daily Life at
12:00 PM
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Posted by: The NSA at June 08, 2013 12:50 PM (F7DdT)
Posted by: Wonderduck at June 08, 2013 02:47 PM (lpH3d)
Yeah, they're annoying. I've also never heard of them actually working properly.
Posted by: sqa at June 08, 2013 02:58 PM (ehYGU)
Posted by: Siergen at June 08, 2013 03:02 PM (Ao4Kw)
I've said that if I ever see someone ACTUALLY stealing a car equipped with one of these, I'd applaud.
Also, Portland's airport has a parking lot right under the approach path, so cars with overly sensitive alarms will be set off continuously. Often the owners return home to dead batteries.
Posted by: Mauser at June 08, 2013 09:14 PM (cZPoz)
Why make the news? This is Texas. He opened fire with a rifle from the balcony; the guy couldn't get out fast enough.
Posted by: ubu at June 08, 2013 09:23 PM (GfCSm)
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at June 08, 2013 09:34 PM (+rSRq)
Not to mention the "castle doctrine" is very strong here.
Posted by: ubu at June 08, 2013 09:40 PM (GfCSm)
Posted by: hga at June 09, 2013 05:59 AM (NWOOu)
Enclose all spoilers in spoiler tags:
[spoiler]your spoiler here[/spoiler]
Spoilers which are not properly tagged will be ruthlessly deleted on sight.
Also, I hate unsolicited suggestions and advice. (Even when you think you're being funny.)
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