You’d like to teach the cars to honk in perfect harmony?
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It’s the Real Thing, man…
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New York State law requires insurers to give a discount to people who have car alarms installed.
This is a good read (about 4 pages): http://www.transalt.org/sites/default/files/campaigns/caralarms/alarmdiscount.pdf
Technically it requires the discounts to reflect the ‘lower’ theft rates, so since it’s about 0% lower the insurance companies could go with no discount. But they just say f@#4 it and go with the default suggested so they don’t get sued or have to go through the hassle of tracking/setting it.
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Had one of those that parked across the street from my house. One day the owner came out and found it missing. It was recovered the same day, just a couple of blocks away, with a note reading “Your car alarm was defective, so I fixed it for you.”
On checking under the hood, it became apparent that the alarm control box and powerhorn had been rather rudely ripped from their moorings, and were nowhere to be seen.
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Oh wish I had done that to the one in my neighborhood! 
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I feel like a whole lot of theft is merely about opportunity. There are people who will walk around and check if cars are unlocked and steal what they can, some will break out a window if they see something worth taking, but that’s about it. And alarms will deter those thieves. They are not skilled and will not try and defeat the alarm, and the last thing they want is for someone to see what they are up to.
A long time ago I had wheels stolen off my car that was parked in my carport right outside my apartment. Now I don’t know if it ever deterred in further theft or not, but I would be surprised if they would have stolen the wheels had they saw the blinking light of an alarm, because if the alarm is sounding and someone is in the area, they will likely look that direction, and that’s all that’s needed to scare off some thieves.
A determined, skilled thief can defeat the alarm, but how often does that really happen? The same can be said for a house alarm, or even the locks on your door. Are you going to give up all security just because it can all be defeated by someone with the right skills?
The stupidity does not end there…
I had a Jeep Cherokee with an alarm that used to go off when the wind was in the wrong direction. It would then sound the horn and flash the lights for hours until the battery went flat. It would then unlock al the doors and the hood and leave the car like that. When I came back, I got another car to give me a jump start. When I connected the jump leads, it relocked the doors, locking my key in, and the put on the siren and the lights. The doors stayed locked when I disconnected the battery. We had to get the other keys to open it.
Another time, I came back to find the hood open and the alarm smashed. If you are out there, thank you, kind stranger, thank you indeed; and I am so sorry about all the noise.
I have heard of BMW’s that have flattened the battery because the alarm went off because the battery was going flat (which is a way of disabling the alarm and everything else), and then opening all the doors.
From the other side, I and a bunch of other people at a bus stop watched someone try and open a car, set off the alarm, open the bonnet, wrench the wires off the alarm, get into the car, and after a bit of fiddling, got it going. We all assumed it was his car. I wonder if it was.
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DH used to live in a highrise in Boston. One night, someone’s car alarm went off, and stayed on alert for 45 minutes. That’s the point at which a cinderblock whizzed past DH’s window from an upper story and squarely impacted the hood of the noisy car. Alarm cut off; problem solved, to applause from the neighbors.
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As a kid, we had a neighbor with a BWM that the crows would have fightclub on and set off the alarm.
Turns out carefully adhering baloney sliced to read “FUCK YOUR CAR ALARM” to the hood doesn’t set off the car alarm, and also ruins the paint in that configuration (mostly).
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I used to go hiking in an area where the parking area at the trail base was fairly known for having cars or bit stolen. I bought an aftermarket alarm that had a shock sensor (the kind that goes off if someone uses a spring punch to pop a window, which often won’t set off a standard alarm), and a kill switch for the electrical system that required a keypad code if they did get in and start it up. It honestly worked quite nicely, and I think the point is entirely correct that it’s about making your valuables the most pain in the butt to steal, so the bad guys move on to something easier.
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I installed a number of blinking LEDs for friends’ cars…
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Hey! Me too!
Although I think thieves avoided it for different reasons…
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As it should be.
That’s kind of the same approach I take with my bike. I figure I can’t make it impossible to steal, but I can make it embarrassing.
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My old boss used to have this saying, “Locks keep honest people honest.”
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Some construction worker painted his tools pink. The other guys would not want to be caught dead with a pink hammer. His tools stopped “wandering off.”
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Little bit of extra profit for the dealer.
It’s the undercoat of the 21st century.
I’ve often said that if I ever become dictator, one of the laws I would enact is that an audible car alarm that is on for more than 5 minutes is a legal acknowledgement that you have abandoned your property and anyone may do with it as they wish.
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