This question is for people who have car alarms, and who have had them go off for no apparent reason. When you realize your car is making the noise, and you shut it off, what goes through your head?
Are you irritated? If so - at what? Are you embarrassed? Do you do anything differently? Do you not give it a second thought? Others?
I’ve never had a car alarm. A car in the parking lot outside my work window just went off for several minutes. I didn’t see anyone in the lot, and there has never been a history of theft/damage in the lot.
The ‘alarms’ that have come with my cars have all been just what ever stock feature that comes with them. I will rarely bump the button when unlocking the car. It bugs me, but I just turn it right off.
Thanks. I was talking about when an alarm goes off for an extended time, and the driver is nowhere around. I don’t know what sets them off - a gust of wind? A passerby bumps it?
If mine has ever gone off for an extended period, I’m not aware of it. I did set it off accidentally in my garage the other day, and it set the dogs a’barkin’.
Is there any value to car alarms? I’ve never heard anyone say “OMG! Call 9-1-1!!” when a car alarm goes off. Mostly, people seem to be either amused, irritated, or oblivious.
Do car alarms generally “time out”? This one this morning probably lasted for 3-5 minutes (tho it SEEMED longer!) I imagined someone eventually realized it was their car, and the clicked their fob to turn it off. But in my ignorance, I imagine it could well shut off after a set time.
ISTM that in the past I had heard alarms go off for quite extended periods - 10 minutes or longer.
If anyone can find it, once upon a time I read a newspaper article reporting quantitative data that by itself a car alarm was useless and ignored, as one might expect, but that, e.g., a car alarm + steering-wheel lock was better than just the steering-wheel lock alone. Maybe it’s true to some extent that a casual thief would rather steal your neighbor’s car than defeat 3-4 systems at once, even if the alarm specifically is no big deal.
I was sitting in a parking lot when the alarm in the next car went off. It lasted for about 15 seconds. Two minutes later, the owner showed up. I rolled down my window and told her that her alarm had been on. It turns out, she had intentionally activated the alarm because she could not find her car. When I told her I thought her actions were inconsiderate of others, she was unconcerned.
Today’s cars have a time limit of 3? minutes.
And as someone else mentioned, no one ever thinks of calling 911 when they hear a car alarm.
I used to work at a naval air station, and the shockwave from a low-flying jet would set them off in the parking lots there. It was more funny than annoying, but air stations are noisy places, so I’d expect the reaction there to be different than, say, in a quiet suburban neighborhood.
I keep a car alarm because I’ve had a problems in the past with crackheads trying to shimmy open the lock by placing a scrrewdriver in the key hole and turning. Generally from what I’ve seen the alarm scares them off since I caught one guy in the act who ran and my front door cam caught another guy running away after it went off after he set it off.
I remember one time we were watching fireworks, and the big boomers set of a bunch of alarms. Like you said, pretty funny.
Curiously, was watching a softball game yesterday, and an alarm went off. Happened to be the car of the guy sitting next to us who we were talking with. He immediately looked over to see if it was his car, and turned it off using his fob. I didn’t ask him anything, and all he said was, “I wonder what set it off. It usually isn’t very sensitive.” I wondered if a foul ball had hit the car, but that didn’t appear to have been the case.
When i lived in NYC, a neighbor went away for a few days to attend a funeral. During that time, something set off her car alarm. Several irate people vandalized the car, which was probably disturbing several hundred residents. The doorman finally broke into her car, opened the hood, and detached the alarm from the battery.
I’m going to guess that alarm didn’t do her any good. She had fairly serious car repairs to deal with when she returned. And hundreds of people had their sleep interrupted.
If you’d have asked this two days ago I would have said, “No.” However, a local small town PD posted a video on Facebook yesterday of some footage caught by a residential home’s front porch camera. Car cruises up to where there are a few cars parked on an otherwise empty street at night. Guy gets out and tries a door on one car. No luck. Tries another car and its alarm goes off. Guy scampers back to his car and takes off.
Had it not been a quiet area at night the result might not have been the same but it worked in that case.
I wish I could deactivate the alarm. I usually set it off by accident when the denim of my jeans rumples in just the right way to hit the alarm button when the key is in my pocket. Then I go, “how the hell do I turn this thing off?” because I can never remember which buttons I need to push to make that happen.
If my car alarm went off, and I actually heard it (I live in an apartment building in New York City), I would be overjoyed. I would not call the police. I would not do anything that would interfere with the work of the car thief. I would actually go downstairs and help him, although I suppose the insurance company might have a problem with that.
I *wish *someone would steal my car. Our car, I should say, and it is a millstone around my neck. But my wife (not from NYC, but from a remote rural area) cannot imagine life without a car. So we have one. I hate it.