Is there a single documented instance of a car alarm actually preventing a crime? Rather than causing one because your neighbours murder you for keeping them up all night because a fox breathed near your car or something?
6
Replies
1
Boost
@afewbugs um Brazil there was a Company that sold tracking services for *when* your car was stolen.
Its alarm was a recording on the vein of "this car is being stolen and is monitored by CarSystem[sic]. Call 0118 999 881 999 119 725 3 and report the vehicle license plate".
I wonder if they have ever received a non-prank call.
@afewbugs the other week I was running an errand in a work truck and had my hands full (didn't bring a bag) and with the unfamiliar keys accidentally set off my car alarm right as an elderly man passed, making him jump and just generally alarming him. I felt so bad 😭 why is it so close to the unlock button on some key fobs
@afewbugs difficult to prove as unless there us CCTV *everywhere* (less common in residential streets than folk think) its hard to detect occasions where the alarm going off has scared off opportunist thieves (but by the time that happens they may have broken the window anyway).
Often what sets the alarm off repeatedly during summer is someone has accidentally locked a small flying insect in the car at night (they get attracted by the interior lights) which sets the detectors off whilst flying around..
What does protect the car is the immobiliser chip in the key (so a duplicate key or hotwiring won't allow thieves to drive off with the vehicle), and rolling codes from the keyfob transmitter (the numbers sent from the radio TX change on each press) rather than the noise..
@afewbugs@social.its difficult to prove as unless there us CCTV *everywhere* (less common in residential streets than folk think) its hard to detect occasions where the alarm going off has scared off opportunist thieves (but by the time that happens they may have broken the window anyway).
Often what sets the alarm off repeatedly during summer is someone has accidentally locked a small flying insect in the car at night (they get attracted by the interior lights) which sets the detectors off whilst flying around..
What does protect the car is the immobiliser chip in the key (so a duplicate key or hotwiring won't allow thieves to drive off with the vehicle), and rolling codes from the keyfob transmitter (the numbers sent from the radio TX change on each press) rather than the noise..
See also burglar alarms on houses.
@essjayjay @afewbugs I remember once hearing on the radio scanner (in pre-Airwave days) multiple units of Thames Valley Police responding to the bells going off at a posh house, and turning up only to end up with a Roads Policing Officer and a tomcat who had got in at an open window glaring at each other
The officer jokingly said to the control room that he could only give words of advice to the cat, then let it go 😺
