I had an op/ed in the New York Daily News a couple of days ago on the topic of banning audible car alarms in New York City. If you're interested, here it is. A fellow from the consumer electronics industry wrote a counterpoint . I'd be curious to hear what people think about the merits of our arguments and of the issue in general.

Here's the text of my piece:

New York Daily News, July 8, 2003
Point/Counterpoint
Ban car alarms? They disrupt life & don't work

Audible car alarms are Public Enemy No. 1 for quality of life in this city. With the City Council considering legislation to ban their sale and installation, the time has come to get rid of these infuriating and useless devices.

New York is sick of paying the car alarm noise tax. In a Transportation Alternatives survey of 850 New Yorkers, 91% said car alarms destroy quality of life. The NYPD's Quality of Life Hotline tells the same story. In 2001, 83% of the 97,000 calls were noise complaints, with car alarms consistently near the top of the list.

Transportation Alternatives found that only 5% of New Yorkers had ever responded to a car alarm as if it were a theft. Yet, 60% have called the police or taken action against alarm noise itself. Apparently, car alarms are a more pressing and costly crime problem than the thieves they are meant to deter.

Anyone who has been awakened by blaring alarms set off by a passing sanitation truck knows the high cost of this technology in a crowded city. The benefits, however, are nonexistent. Car alarms simply do not work.

A Columbia University study found that 99% of alarms are false. Car thieves know this, and most can disarm an alarm in a matter of seconds anyway. The insurance industry is wising up. In an analysis of 73 million vehicles, the Highway Loss Data Institute concluded that cars with alarms "show no overall reduction in theft losses" compared to cars without alarms. The only real benefit is a meager $19-a-year average insurance discount. Some auto insurers no longer offer even this.

With a wide variety of new silent security systems on the market, a ban on car alarms is totally feasible. Inexpensive passive immobilizer systems that put a computer chip in the ignition key are becoming standard. In the 1990s, they reduced theft on Ford Mustangs by 77%. Personal car alarm pagers alert a car's owner rather than the entire neighborhood. Global positioning systems like Lojack often lead police to chop shops, reducing crime for everyone. Even a simple $30 brake lock does more to deter theft than an audible alarm.

Every few years, new car alarm legislation comes before the Council. Without fail, the companies that make hundreds of millions of dollars by putting products called Viper, Cobra and Hellfire on our neighborhood streets fly in and make empty promises about raising standards and providing new technologies. They warn that banning alarms will take us back to the grand theft auto days of the late '80s. They offer scare tactics, not facts.

Banning alarms is a win for everyone but the car thieves. Car owners will switch to security systems that actually work. Their vehicles will be better protected and their insurance discounts will increase. Likewise, the law will be a boon for local dealers who sell and install the new systems. Most important, New Yorkers finally will stop losing sleep over automobile security.



12:05 PM | Link |