False Alarms

I recently wrote about the worst invention of all time, the automatic car alarm. I recently had another experience that places it even more firmly in that position. Under no circumstances should you reach through an open window to unlock your car. The system interprets that as a theft attempt and the car starts beeping. However, this is not like other times the system goes off and all you need to do is press the red button on your key. No, this time they are serious.

I pushed the button, locked and unlocked the doors, put the key in the ignition, started the car, pushed more buttons, and generally acted frantic. Eventually, I stopped it, but I am still not sure what sequence of events turned it off. It was beeping for probably 60-90 seconds, but it felt like 10 minutes. I had visions of the neighbors coming after me with pitch forks. Of course, I never had visions of the neighbors calling the police and trying to help me.

So not only do these alarms go off all of the time for no reason, under some circumstances, they are almost impossible to stop. For awhile I thought it would be beeping for hours, and failing to get a response other than anger the whole time.

What we need is a web site with a wide readership that can start a petition for auto makers to eliminate these worthless devices. We could get maybe several million signatures. This web site should also include a call for any documented examples in which a car alarm actually prevented a crime, in case it has ever happened. Somebody must know of one, but it is possible it has never happened. It should also have a poll with at least two simple questions: have you ever had a false alarm with a car alarm, and have you ever had a true alarm. I imagine thousands of people saying yes to the first and no to the second. My guess is several thousand to one. If possible, it could ask about how many false alarms have you had, although that might be difficult--I have no idea how many I have had. With this data, we could get an estimate of the ratio of true alarms to false alarms. As I said before, any device or test that had a false positive rate of several thousand to one should be immediately eliminated.

There, I got that off of my chest. I can at least dream of a mass movement against these satanic devices. Now I just have to remember to leave the windows rolled up.