Car Alarms Don't Work. Why Are They So Common? | Hacker News Reader

Car Alarms Don't Work. Why Are They So Common?

theatlantic.com

32 pointsJackPoach60 comments

Moreover, a blaring alarm might scare off a first-time joyrider, but they’re a non-issue for most professional thieves, who can clip a few wires and silence an alarm with ease. Indeed, one 1997 analysis found that cars with alarms “show no overall reduction in theft losses.”

So a car alarm doesn't reduce the probability of your car being stolen compared to someone else's car. On the face of it that demonstrates car alarms don't work. But it also implies that car alarms collectively reduce the level of opportunist "first-time joyrider" crime as a whole, which will reduce the probability of your car being stolen. If 9 out of 10 cars are taken by opportunists then car alarms will reduce the crime level by 90%. They'll have no effect on the remaining 10% but that doesn't mean they're useless.

> it also implies that car alarms collectively reduce the level of opportunist "first-time joyrider" crime as a whole

No it doesn't? It speculates that "a blaring alarm might scare off a first-time joyrider" but offers no actual evidence that this happens, and the "no overall reduction in theft losses" argues against that.

Clipping wires is a fine if its aftermarket but most modern cars clipping wires can disable the whole car. Even modern motorcycles will use CAN buses which both don't take well to breaks in the lines but also can react poorly to bad splicing jobs.

Last time I looked at after-market car alarms, even the most basic units ($100 NZD = ~70 USD) had at least one immobilizer, sometimes multiple. (An immobilizer being a relay which interrupts one or more parts of the startup/ignition/fuel systems until the alarm has been disabled, usually through a rolling-code keyfob).

This article make it seem like immobilizers are some exotic high-end feature, which has not been my experience at all.

I never thought about it before reading this article, but in the city where I live (Lisbon) car alarms going off were a constant phenomena about 10 to 20 years ago and have constantly dropped since then. Today they are almost gone. Maybe alarms are being replaced by silent immobilizers in the low to mid range, combined with GPS tracking devices in the high range?

Because they do work.

The article only offers one point of evidence they don't -

> Indeed, one 1997 analysis found that cars with alarms “show no overall reduction in theft losses.”

Which I can't access, but I can access other articles that confirm car alarms do work.

Even the fact insurance companies require them shows they do. I'll trust an actuary with real data, real money on the line, real money for research over one journal article any day.

> Even the fact insurance companies require them shows they do.

Irrefutable proof right there. Also, random guys who have cars with alarms and it's working for them because nobody ever tried to steal their cars.

In Israel alarms were banned for new cars. Cars that already have alarms are grandfathered in for 3 years or so and then alarms must be disabled.

Immobilizers have done a great job of reducing theft, however.

I can tell you why I have one. I get a break on my insurance.

But is it only an alarm or incorporate other anti-theft devices (or just things like remote controlled doors)?

Just the alarm. It paid for itself in three years or so.

It was a condition to have at least two security items (alarm, immobilizer) to get insurance at all, for me. Otherwise, the insurance companies were not willing to provide any coverage at all.

So I have a huge interest in micro-economics.

Based on thinking about what you wrote, I have the following real question (not sarcasm or making a point): if your homeowner's insurance company gave you a $100/year break if you bought a certified "tiger rock" for $300 (that keeps tigers from breaking into your home) would you (actually) buy one? (You can substitute anything else that is obviously non-working, you can assume that corruption leads the policy - insurance actuary in cahoots with tiger rock supplier, whatever.) point is I'm curious if you would do it if absolutely non-working. (To the point where even sale of it is kind of offensive.)

If one insurer offered this, then no. If the majority of insurers I would be likely to use offered it, I probably would - after 3 years I've broken even, and I'll definitely be needing home insurance longer than that. This latter situation also maintains my ability to shop around for competitive premium rates.

So ultimately yes - I'd buy it as long as it has a positive EV for myself.

Perhaps you should also consider it from the insurance company's point of view - why are they offering discounts to specific people in the first place? Perhaps they know something that you don't?

Yes. Isn't the car alarm already that?

I'd ask them if I can install another one on the back door. If they're giving me free money, who am I to judge their motivation?

Ah but it isn't really free money. By installing two if these things, you've essentially hooked yourself to your insurance provider for six years. I'd happily give away two $300 bags of crap to get a customer handcuffed to me for six years.

Disclaimer: I hate car alarms with a vengeance. I think if a car alarm sounds and does not shut down within ten minutes (automatically or owner's intervention), there should be a large fine (I'd say the value of the car).

great point - that I hadn't thought of!

That's a very good point. I would argue that insurance is a long-term relationship, it's a very mature industry, I don't expect there will be great savings in changing providers, and finding the best provider means doing due diligence and reading through dozens of small print — not something I would relish anyway. They're offering a 33% annual ROI. If they can guarantee an option to re-up for at least four years, we're good.

You should adjust the car alarm's settings. If you don't, and you happen to live in my neighbourhood, I have a stack of bricks in my back yard, one of which will just about fit through that hole in your windshield.

If I got that break, then yes, I would buy one. Hell, we don't even have tigers in this country, I'd still get it.

For me these kinds of things are a straight economic calculation. If the tiger rock plus the premium is less than what other companies are charging, then I'll buy a tiger rock. Assuming it doesn't have some sort of problem.

If there's a problem with the tiger rock (it smells or takes up a lot of room or whatever) then I'll assign a value to the problem and add it to the premium for my calculations. Same thing with the "lock in" effect of having my rock only pay off after three years.

I suppose I could tell them I have a tiger rock when I really don't, but I place a value on integrity, too.

There's an interesting point here right at the end. The solution to most problems that are most often tackled with jail time isn't jail.

The war on drugs is the classic example. If a government doesn't want people abusing substances, that's fine, but the solution isn't jail sentences. It's addressing why people abuse them in the first place.

Jail is too often used as a rug to sweep those we disapprove of under. It's easier and quicker than trying to actually solve the problem, but it's also far less effective and more expensive in the long run.

It's high time society made a concerted effort to try and help people from these sorts of backgrounds, rather than demonising them in the media, and castigating them in the political arena. Rehabilitation, education and support are far more effective tools than jail for many crimes.

The solution to car theft, however, is most definitely jail.

Why not community service or a fine? It's a non-violent crime.

I don't know what happens in the US but here in the UK fines can be paid in installments relative to the offender's income.

Since they are likely to be on benefits and, technically, on a 'basic minimum income' (another story) this means the amount they have to pay each week/month is negligible and not a real deterrent.

Community service also, here at least, is considered a soft option.

> Community service also, here at least, is considered a soft option.

"Is considered" is a weasel phrase. I don't know how you're defining "soft", but statistically community service is far more effective at reducing reoffending than prison is.

> "I don't know how you're defining "soft", but statistically community service is far more effective at reducing reoffending than prison is."

It may well be more effective but what I meant, in terms of being soft, is that it doesn't deter the initial offence in the same way the certainty of a prison sentence would do?

Deterrence generally doesn't work though.

Well, we don't know if does or not since those who have been deterred are not being counted.

We can measure what happens when e.g. sentencing guidelines for some particular crime change to favour prison over community service or vice versa.

Seems like you have superior knowledge of the system so I'll defer to it.

I guess I'm thinking of deterrents on a bigger scale. The kind of person who commits low-level crime probably doesn't weigh up the pros and cons (no pun intended) of getting caught?

So you have large numbers of young people with nothing to lose in your society, but the "problem" is that they might disrupt the possessions of richer people and the "solution" is to pay to put them in prison? Surely there's a better way.

> "Surely there's a better way."

There is always a better way but we haven't found it yet. They don't just disrupt richer people though, they are a blight on all of society.

Also making it more difficult to do anything with stolen cars.

That isn't a solution. Even if prison stops someone being a thief that doesn't stop new thieves coming along. The solution to theft is to create a society where people don't feel the need or desire to steal things. That's much easier said than done though

Your outlook will probably change the first morning you walk outside to find your car missing.

Possibly, but that doesn't make me right. If someone stole my car I don't doubt for a second that I would wish many many horrible (and very disproportionate) things on that person, but that's just me being petty and out for revenge. I (hopefully) wouldn't honestly start believing that it would be a good solution to the larger problem.

No. I just want them out of circulation in society. I don't want them to be tortured, or even necessarily imprisoned. Buy them a one-way bus ticket to the next city for all I care.

Here in the Seattle area, we've seen the effect of lenient auto theft laws, and also the effect when they're strengthened. It's not subject to debate. The statistics are very clear. Touchy-feely "punishments" aimed at social integration do not work on these people.

But it is amazing (and amusing) to see people make words and ideas up and credit them to me.

It's not subject to debate. The statistics are very clear.

Interesting. I'd really like to see those studies. Most studies I've seen on the subject are far from clear. And anyway I'm not necessarily arguing for leniency per se. just that I do not believe that simply locking people up for a long time is an effective or efficient way to actually solve anything.

But it is amazing (and amusing) to see people make words and ideas up and credit them to me.

What are you talking about? I was talking purely about myself.

My outlook is "Society should be a place where theft isn't a thing." That isn't going to change if I'm the victim of theft; in fact, if anything, that would strengthen my resolve and make me more adamant that reducing poverty and materialism is the answer.

Believing that people being put in prison is preferable to crime not happening in the first place is a really weird position to take.

My outlook is "Society should be a place where theft isn't a thing."

Yeah, we'll get right on that. In the meantime, on this planet, jail it is.

Believing that people being put in prison is preferable to crime not happening in the first place is a really weird position to take.

Sigh.

The rate of car theft in New York has fallen by 96% over the past 30 years[1]. That's mostly due to technology, but there are other factors. Some of the last 4% will be solved by changing society to make car theft unnecessary for poorer people by ending poverty. The rest, probably, will always be there. I believe this demonstrates that we can effectively end crime. In three more decades if the rate is 1% what it is now I reckon that's pretty close.

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/12/upshot/heres-why-stealing-...

> The solution to car theft, however, is most definitely jail.

Sure, if everyone is in jail, and cars aren't allowed in the jail, there will be no car theft.

I surely fall outside of where they gathered their statistics, but living in a rural area, and going to small schools (circa 1995), my car alarm was quite useful. It's different when you live in a place where people know one another, and give a damn about crime. 99% of the time, myself, or someone I knew, was within earshot of my alarm.

First off, everyone here knows that default settings often don't suffice. You can't just take the alarm out of the box, hook it up, and call it good. You have to configure it, and sometimes that takes a bit of effort to get right. My alarm would only go off if someone broke a window, crashed into my car (hard), or tried the door handles. I wanted it to activate in each of those scenarios.

Next, the blinking LED. I knew guys that would simply wire in an LED, no alarm at all, because the flashing LED is what said "I have an alarm and it's armed." Nobody here avoided pranking their friend (or nemesis) because they saw that red LED? I certainly did, it says DO NOT TOUCH. Not the case these days, but twenty years back, blinky lights were fancy.

Finally, there are all kinds of alarms, they don't all have blaring sirens. Even in the 90s, there was an alarm that signaled a pager (don't recall the protocol). There was also the option of just flashing the lights, or outright killing power to everything. From sensors to alerts, nothing has improved over the last twenty years? Bah!

Again, being from a rural area, I'm likely an exception to the rule; I can imagine car alarms causing insanity in the city. But, I've got to say that my car alarm was pretty useful back in high school and college. And, knowing that other people had alarms stopped quite a few shenanigans within my group of friends. I hesitate to say this, but reckless as it may be, some of us do want to go kick some criminal ass when the opportunity presents itself. I tackled a guy and had him tied to a chair when the cops arrived, it was awesome!

I'm not going to argue the math, this article is surely on the right side of things, I'm just offering a different perspective. My car no longer has an alarm, but it also doesn't have five grand in speakers, CDs, and other teenage crap in it. My house now has the alarm, but it consists of all kinds of cool stuff other than a siren; there's no reason it can't be the same with modern car alarms.

Ignoring alarms in the city isn't about giving a damn about crime. It's about knowing that 99% of the time when a car alarm goes off and you look out your window there's nobody within 100 feet of the damn thing. It got set off by a pigeon or by someone driving too close and making the windows rattle a bit.

Then it goes off ceaselessly all night when you're trying to sleep. That's not a warning system. It's a hair trigger and a nuisance.

NYC introduced an ordinance about 10 years ago severely fining anyone whose alarm doesn't turn off automatically after 2 minutes. It's still legal to have one that's on a hair trigger and gets set off again 30 seconds after turning off as long as it turns off within 2 minutes.

Thankfully they've become less common altogether since then.

Alarm owners should be paying noise pollution fines every time they have a false-positive.

There is no reason why I should I get woken up at 3am for the potential benefits of somebody else's possession.

Brick-through-the-windshield tax.

I was thinking about this the other day as the neighbour's car alarm went off and yet again disturbed my peaceful ruminations. My mind was soon swirling with passive aggressive fantasies involving mean little notes, permanent markers, and of course scraping keys. Looks like Moloch wins again.

Is this a market ripe for disruption - people are still buying a product that doesn't work? Also the market is likely to change over the next decade. What happens to car crime once a large number of vehicles are self drive?

Does Tesla give you a call when someone breaks into your car?

It would be easy to make a car where the door latches snap shut, the car fills with sleeping gas, and it drives itself to the nearest police station.

If there isn't a police station in range, the car can skip the sleeping gas and deliver a two hour lecture on the evils of car crime - which would probably be more of a deterrent than jail time.

Of course, false alarms would be even more inconvenient than they are now.

>the car fills with sleeping gas

That's a good way to get someone killed if the dosage wasn't monitored correctly

That's just going to get your windows kicked out and an empty damaged car showing up at the station

I'd imagine people would block cars without passengers from escaping. Rip out the tracker and any other remote control components. Then tow it to a chop shop and sell the parts for scrap.

I guess network security will matter too. A thief could reroute a moving vehicle in transit and send it to their favourite chop-shop. In fact, given that you will only ever be a passenger in a self drive vehicle, why limit yourself to stealing empty cars?

Also, if you make the consumer feel like he would be safer, it's an extra feature to sell.

I think it depends on the situation.

My car is parked outside of my house in such a way that stealing the car would take a few minutes (It's a bit tricky to get the car down the drive, and it takes 1 minute even when you know how to best turn it).

If I didn't have an alarm they could just steal it. As I do, and if I'm in, I'll certainly hear the alarm in time to do something about it.

Of course this doesn't apply everywhere but the blanket statement that car alarms don't work is plain wrong.

Just leave a venomous snake in a handbag on the passenger seat. Probably the best car alarm you can get.

Cobra Vehicle Security?

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