All About Car Alarms
Nothing beats a car alarm for protecting your car or truck from theft. Of course you need to take all the conventional precautions like locking your vehicle at all times, parking in well-lit, high-traffic areas, and closing windows and sunroofs. But where the rubber meets the road, none of this will make any difference if a thief really wants your car. That’s where car alarms come in. Car thieves hate drawing attention to themselves, and the sirens and flashing lights of a remote alarm going off remind them too much of the police, with whom they’ve no doubt had an experience that ended badly for them.
Auto security systems come in all flavors, from simple and relatively inexpensive, to complex and high-priced. That said, there’s no such thing as a cheap car alarm. If you want to protect your car or truck, you’ll need to invest some money in a car alarm system. But an investment it is. Spending money now will buy you a lot of hours of peace of mind in the future—every time you park your vehicle, in fact. And if you protect yourself with a car security system, you’ll avoid the stress and hassle of losing your vehicle to a car thief, waiting for the police to show up, getting someone to come pick you up from the scene of the crime, finding a rental car, and filing an insurance claim, not to mention replacing all the stuff inside your car that disappeared when it was stolen.
You should know in advance what type of features you’re looking for, before you go out shopping for a vehicle alarm. You don’t want to be confused by a pushy salesman looking for a quick sale and a big commission who might sell you a system that’s missing features you want. For some vehicle owners, a basic auto alarm system consisting of a sensor switch on each door frame hooked up the horn and headlights is all the protection they need. For others, only the best will do, and they’ll be disappointed if they don’t come home from the shop with the latest and greatest features on their auto security system. If you drive a midsize domestic sedan or a high-mileage SUV, you probably won’t need high-end goodies like air pressure sensors that can detect a rush of air into the passenger compartment, or sound sensors that can pick up the distinctive noise of shattering window glass. On the other hand, if you drive an Escalade or Hummer or Porsche, you might want all these things and more. You might even want a car alarm remote with a motion detector that picks up movement close to or inside your vehicle, and an elevation detection device that sets off the sirens and lights as soon as the more sophisticated car thief starts to gently winch your expensive ride up a ramp and onto a flatbad tow truck that he purchased specifically for stealing cars like yours.
No analysis of car security would be complete without looking at the part that draws attention and repels thieves. Car alarms may use existing equipment like the horn and headlights, or they may include installed components like sirens under the hood. Consumers like to buy car alarm systems with programmable noisemakers so they can set up a distinctive siren pattern. This is done so they can recognize that it’s their car being broken into and not someone else’s—a nice feature to have in congested urban neighborhoods and high-crime areas where sirens are going off constantly.
So how do you control all this technology? We’ve all seen the guy in the parking lot who triggers his car alarm by mistake and can’t figure out how to turn it off. It’s even funnier if he’s on a date with a lady friend—except for him. Well, the key is in the key fob—the little sending unit on your keychain that sets and disables the alarm. Car alarm controllers have come a long way since the early days of the technology. In the bad old days, you had to set your vehicle security system just like the burglar alarm in your house—punch in a code while sitting in the car and then get out and lock up within 60 seconds. Nowadays, the controller looks just like a normal keyless remote unit that comes as standard equipment on almost all new vehicles. One button locks, one button unlocks, one button is for panic, and one button arms and disables the alarm. It’s so simple that a five-year-old—or a guy on a date—can do it.
Technology has brought other innovations to the vehicle security industry. Lockout or kill switch vehicle security systems frustrate car thieves by immobilizing your automobile unless you’re in it to push the right buttons—literally. The most common example of this type of device is the radiofrequency identification device, or RFID. This is a programmable key with a built in transmitter that locks out the ignition system in your car until you give the signal by pushing a button on the key. These systems were all the rage ten years ago, but gradually, car thieves figured out that a laptop computer or other wireless network device could easily crack the code. This was a problem mainly in neighborhoods, where the crook living down the street would spy on his neighbor’s RFID signal, program it into his own key, and pay a visit later in the week to steal the car. Nowadays, RFIDs have been modified to scramble the signal, or you can program a new signal every day with the touch of a button.
Another type of kill switch vehicle security system locks out one or more vital components that your car needs to run. It’s hard to steal a car whose fuel pump has been disabled. The same goes for the battery and alternator. Car owners who have chosen this type of auto security system like to position a series of hidden switches in various locations around the passenger compartment that have to be tripped in a certain order before the car will start. It’s true that a thief will probably find the switches sooner or later, but car thieves like to hurry. When you’re leading a life of crime, time is not your friend.
In the past few years, a new type of auto security system has hit the market. This one does its job after your car has already been stolen by emitting a signal that can be tracked by law enforcement authorities. Some of these systems work in tandem with the factory installed global position systems (GPS) that more and more new cars have as standard equipment. You can also set up a tracking system using an aftermarket GPS as an auto theft prevention device. The other type of tracking system involves a radiofrequency unit, such as the LoJack. These systems may be more effective because a car thief won’t know whether your car is equipped with one or not and won’t be sure where to look for it. Law enforcement officials have praised tracking units like the LoJack as not only helping them recover stolen vehicles, but also helping them bust up “chop shops” and other crime rings. Insurance companies like the LoJack too. Some of them are now giving their customers a rebate good toward purchase of the system, along with a reduction in their insurance premiums.
As car alarms become more sophisticated, so do car thieves. A new wrinkle in the auto theft industry is the acquisition of expensive components like air bags, which can be resold for hundreds of dollars. The temptation is so great that crooks will even risk their lives stealing air bags—criminals have been killed outright when an air bag went off while they were removing it from a car in the dead of night. Auto manufacturers are studying a number of factory installed solutions, including embedding particulate matter with a unique microscopic “fingerprint” in all of a car’s components—even its paint job.
Car owners on a budget swear by steering wheel locking devices like the “Club,” which also gets high marks from police departments. The nice thing about mechanical locking systems is that they provide a visual deterrent. Sure, any self-respecting car thief will know how to pick the lock on a Club, but that takes time, and crooks like to work fast, without arousing suspicion. Seeing a locking device on the steering wheel of your car might be all it takes to convince a thief to pass this one up and move on to easier pickings. In the end, when it comes to car alarms, any protection is better than none.