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 | Comments (9) | Add Comment
Post contains 270 words, total size 1 kb.

1 The poster is reminded that such thoughts are double-plus-ungood.

Posted by: The NSA at June 08, 2013 12:50 PM (F7DdT)

2 Car alarms do have their moments, though.  Like in 2007, when the Blue Angels appeared at the Duckford AirFest.  When the Diamond Formation went over Pond Complex, they set off every single car alarm.  Which made me laugh, hard, because mine was turned off. 

Posted by: Wonderduck at June 08, 2013 02:47 PM (lpH3d)

3 Brick's comment I think covers the details, haha.

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)

4 I've long suspected that the "person" we know as Brickmuppet was really just a false identity created by some intelligence agency.  No real person could have that much bad luck and still maintain their sense of humor and sanity...

Posted by: Siergen at June 08, 2013 03:02 PM (Ao4Kw)

5 The one I hate most is the one that plays a medley of different alarm sounds, because that one seems to go off all the time at the slightest (or no) provocation.  It's especially annoying.

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)

6 There was a story from one of the southern Houston areas a few years ago, where an apartment dweller heart his car alarm and looked off his second story balcony to realize his rims were being jacked. He put a stop to it immediately, although the perp escaped.

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)

7 He's lucky he wasn't arrested for that. (On the other hand, Texas...)

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at June 08, 2013 09:34 PM (+rSRq)

8 HPD is unusually forgiving if you have no record.  And there was a strong element of a "deliberate miss" to the encounter, given the range.

Not to mention the "castle doctrine" is very strong here.

Posted by: ubu at June 08, 2013 09:40 PM (GfCSm)

9 Texas is unique to my knowledge in allowing the use of lethal force to stop theft after a verbal warning.  I wouldn't depend on their courts allowing this forever, e.g. such a provision in Oklahoma law has been judicially nullified, as has my home state of Missouri's crystal clear Castle Doctrine, but for now, "Don't Mess With Texas."

Posted by: hga at June 09, 2013 05:59 AM (NWOOu)

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