There are two points labeled 4. I don’t get why the paragraphs are even numbered at that point.
George Carlin had a bit directly attributing the rise of carjackings to the proliferation of car alarms. Anyone have any idea if there’s any truth to that?
(not that I’m seriously considering George Carlin as a source of reliable information on such matters, no matter how many inspirational/cynical memes his picture gets attached to)
I was at the airport when suddenly the car alarm of this Camaro suddenly went off. Two big guys who had been sitting in the car, slowly got out and walked away rather nonchalantly with the alarm blazing.
It took me a few seconds to realize what I had seen: Those two guys must have broken into this Camaro, but when the alarm went off, they decided to find some other car that would be less likely to attract attention.
Car alarms are better than when they were around 20 years ago. Most new cars actually have them, but they’ve been bettered tuned that small disturbances won’t affect them any more.
However, car thefts have dropped dramatically over the last decade. In Chicago, there were 53,503 in 1986, only 34,095 in 1996, and in 2013, Chicago had reported that car thefts had risen to a mere 8,089 by October which would be about 10,000 for the year.
The reason for the sharp drop is pretty simple: Immobilizers. All cars now have a factory installed immobilizer. An immobilizer is an electronic shutoff that cannot be bypassed. It keeps the car’s computer from running, and if the car’s computer can’t run, neither can the car.
In older cars, you could either start up the car by simply hot wiring it or by breaking the lock. Now, with the immobilizer, you can’t start the car with the key unless that key’s chip is authorized to start the car. Since it’s entirely logic and electronic, there’s simply no way to bypass anything.
To get a good idea how effective immobilizers are, look not only at the most stolen cars, but their age. Car thieves are stealing not that brand new shiny BMW, but the 20 year old junky Toyota Carola sitting next to it.
The most stolen car in America is the Honda Accord, but the most stolen models are all around two decades old. The 12 year old Dodge Caravans are another hot car. Which means that joy riding (what use to be the biggest reason for car theft) has gotten a lot less joyous.
Yeah, I had a 1998 Neon a few years ago, and it was stolen from its public garage across from my apartment by the thief cutting out the key cylinder and using a screwdriver to turn the component behind the cylinder. They drove it for a dozen miles or so and left it sitting in a parking lot to be recovered, so I was quite lucky in that regard. I always thought it seemed way way too simple, and I’m glad that we have technology now that makes that sort of simple solution to the key mechanism no longer viable. New cars are now pretty much impossible to move without the right key.
If my neighbor’s sanity is dependent on my car alarm not going off, his problems run considerably deeper than mere car alarms. I worry more about his large arsenal of guns and his constant rants about government and his attendance at volunteer militia meetings…
I have no problem with car owners protecting themselves, but I don’t believe audible alarms really do that at all. People in the neighborhood ignore them, and we’re right to do so (at least up to the point where repeated alarms provoke us into vandalizing the offending car).
The right way to do a car alarm is to have it activate a pager (or these days, send a text message) so the owner will know that the alarm has gone off, but NO ONE ELSE WILL HEAR IT.
I have actually sent a serious proposal to my city council member for a law that says, if you are awakened at night by someone’s car alarm, you have a right to go shut the alarm off using a pick-axe, crowbar, or sledge hammer!
Car alarms a noise problem in NYC? Haven’t been their in awhile have you? Our family just got back from three days touring around Manhattan and the Bronx. I have 30% hearing loss and I kept my earbuds in (sans music) just for sanity. Most pedestrians are equipped with earbuds/headphones as well. The base noise level is just astounding. Ambulance and Fire equipment have their sirens turned up to ELEVEN just to cut through the din. I doubt you could hear a car alarm from twenty feet away (exaggeration but not too much).
One of my lifelong ambitions is to NEVER visit New York. (And, I might add, I’m well on my way to accomplishing that.) The above post only convinces me all the more that this is a good ambition to have.
The article stated that having a tracing mechanism is effective at preventing thefts. How does that work? I can understand a tracing device would be helpful in recovering a stolen car, but how does it prevent it from being stolen in the first place? Is there a big sign on it saying “Warning: Protected by LoJack” or something like that?
Something I expected to see but didn’t: what about insurance?
Don’t you get a lower premium if you have an alarm or is that just an urban legend?
My insurance specifically asks if I have an alarm on the application.
“The Internet” told me some years ago that in NYC insurance was required by law to demand a higher rate if you did not have an alarm fitted.
I can’t be bothered looking for verification.
I used to have a steering lock for my Cortina. You could open and start the car with a nail file. Obviously, a car with an easily-defeated after-market steering locks get stolen more often than cars without, because any car where the security is so hopeless that you have to add a steering lock is going to get stolen more often than a modern car.
Do you have a cite for that? AFAIK, not all new cars have them, just the vast majority of new cars.
According to ilco’s 2015 Auto Truck Key Blank Reference, the following 2015 cars come standard with a mechanical key and no immobilizer (although a transponder key and immobilizer may be available as optional upgrades):
2015 Kia Forte
2015 Kia Rio
2015 Hyundai Accent
2015 Hyundai Elantra
2015 Hyundai Sonata
This is not a complete list; it’s just what I found after 5 minutes of browsing the reference.
Okay, but it’s probably still pretty safe to say that all non-Korean cars sold in the US now come with annoyingly bulky trick keys. 
Dunno about theft, but the proliferation of alarms and immobilizers has certainly had an effect on repossession. In the past, you collected the keys, found the car, and drove it away. Now, the big outfits are more likely to just drive up to the car in a flatbed, pick it up with a lift, and take off.
They stole a Dodge Neon? Man, car thieves are really getting desperate now a days.
Back in the late 1980, I had a 1972 Buick LeSabra. I don’t remember if it got 9 miles per gallon or 9 gallons per mile. I was pretty skinny back in those days because I either had a choice of filling up my tank or buying groceries. Since I had to drive to the grocery store, I had to fill up the tank, and never ended up buying groceries. This was when gas prices jumped through the roof and were approaching 90 cents per gallon. The damn car had a 18 gallon tank.
One day, I went grocery shopping, and I couldn’t get the key out of the ignition. Since I was just running in for a couple of items, I thought to heck with it, and left the keys in the car. I figured you have to be insane to steal this piece of junk!
As I was in the checkout line, I suddenly saw my car driving away out of the parking lot. Fortunately, we immediately called the police and the thief was quickly tracked down. It’s not easy driving a Buick the size of a yacht incognito. For all I know, the police caught the thief filling up the tank at a the gas station just around the corner.
My friends joked that the thief would plea innocent by reason of insanity based upon the fact he was stealing my 14 year old Buick LaSabra. It didn’t help matters when I later learned that the thief really did end up pleading innocent by reason of insanity.
New York City is one of the greatest cities in the world, and is well worth a visit. It’s not the same city as it was back in the 1980s when crime was soaring. It’s an amazing metropolis. You’re missing a marvelous experience. I’ve had people from London and Paris tell me how wonderful New York is.
As for car alarms, I work in Midtown New York. Heck, I work right in Times Square. I walk all over the city from Northern most reaches of Central Park down to Battery Park, and I can’t remember the last time I’ve heard a single car alarm go off.
Not that New York is Piece-and-Quietsville. However, I wouldn’t doubt that the noise pollution by my suburban house is just as bad if not worse than I in New York – with all of the leaf blowers, lawn mowers, chain saws trimming trees, and people screeching around residential streets at 45 miles per hour. I can hold a cellphone conversation on the streets of New York without a single problem. I find myself dodging the various suburban noise machines when I attempt the same thing by my house.
I ceased believing these things did anything when I saw a car driving down the street with the alarm going off and exactly no one caring.
I HATE car alarms.
Car alarms have evolved yet another annoying quirk sometime in recent living memory: The chirp.
Before sounding off in full-honk panic mode, many cars will chirp. They go “queep queep queep queep queep”. Except for Cadillacs, which go “queep queep queep queep queep queep queep queep queep queep queep queep queep queep queep” No, I’m not making that up. And since it’s just a pre-alarm warning, the sensitivity is set much higher for this level of alarm.
I had a neighbor a few apartments ago with a Cadillac that did that literally (yes, literally literally) several times every hour, 24/7. And I’ve seen/heard other Cadillacs doing that do.
If someone should ever grab a bazooka and blow such a car to smithereens. . . Well, I can’t think of a better car for that to happen to.
The thing that keeps me out of NYC is the smell. Rotting garbage mixed with urine, no thank you.
Agree fully. We visited three years ago, and it was one of the best trips we’ve ever had. We love NYC.
I’d be fine with someone driving the offending car away, and I’m not fussy who it is.
There’s a place in Heck for the ones that say, “STEP AWAY FROM THE VEHICLE” in a would-be authoritative male voice. They always go off as you’re standing a few inches from the vehicle because you’ve committed the capital crime of parking next to it at the mall.
Oh, and I also hate the ones that go off repeatedly every ten minutes in the middle of the night for no apparent reason. I called the cops on one of those a few years back. I lived in a town with no crime, and the cops came out and ticketed the guy.