Ugh, Horns!

[blas]

Let me just say that while I understand why every vehicle comes with an operational horn, I don't think everyone should be entitled to have an operational one.

It was bad enough when I lived in the ghetto with my roommate and the low-lives we shared the neighborhood with were the lazy types of losers who would pull over on the street and just lay on their horns until their friends came out.

Today, I felt adventurous and decided to see how I could handle driving after being sick.

At about 8:45 am, I went to Subway to get supper for tonight. Across the street from Subway is a mini-mini-mall with a Dollar General and a tool store.

It was too far away to see who it was in particular, but someone felt the need to keep honking their horn. And no, it wasn't a car alarm, because it wasn't a steady horn blast. There'd be a short toot, then a long tooooooooooooooooooot, then a few short toots again, then a loooooooong tooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooot.....oh it was so annoying.

I'm betting someone's kid got a hold of the steering wheel, or some legally deceased bumpkin went out for their morning venture to Dollar General for a gallon of milk and couldn't stop hitting the horn, thinking it was the gas pedal.

[infinitemonkies]

I dearly hope theres a very special eternal torment and punishment awaiting the guy who invented the car alarm.

Have any of you ever seen/heard one go off that wasn't a false alarm?

I used to live a few houses down from a guy who's alarm would start going off at about 2a.m. at least once a week....and he'd just let it go all night until his battery died.

I think there should be a law that allows anyone within earshot to smash the hell out of your car without fear of legal consequence if you let your alarm go off for more than 60 seconds.

[SG15Z]

Car alarms are so annoying, and there's so many false alarms that people don't really pay much attention to them which kinda defeats the purpose.

[AriRashkae]

It's gotten to the point that the only use for alarms is the insurance discount.

[protege]

I used to live a few houses down from a guy who's alarm would start going off at about 2a.m. at least once a week....and he'd just let it go all night until his battery died.

Sounds *exactly* like one of my former neighbors. He and his buddies were going fishing one weekend. Rather than take multiple vehicles, they took his truck, and left the buddies' car behind.

That night, the car alarm went off. Not just once, but *multiple* times Seems that his buddy knew about it, but decided not to tell anyone. Did he leave the keys behind, so the car could be moved? Of course not! Car was locked, the keys were 200 miles away.

Cops come, and there was nothing they could do. At this point, my neighbor isn't happy, and neither is the rest of the block. Good thing it was a weekend...but still. Eventually the noise stopped. Turns out that one of the other neighbors had enough...and broke into the car. That is, he put a brick through the window, popped the hood...and beat the living shit out of the fuse box until it shut off

I'm sure getting that fixed wasn't cheap, but the guy deserved it.

[bean]

I had a neighbor with a truck like that.

It would go off when it was windy. It would go off if someone with a fart can on their car drove by.

I bitched at the apartment management, they told me to just call the cops instead of involving them. I called the cops, the cops said they couldn't do anything unless it was going off nonstop when they showed up.

The final straw was when I parked my car 2 cars away one night, it started its warning chirp as I was parking. I got out of my car and closed the door normally and it started wailing.

I wound up waking him up and bitching him out for a good 5 minutes, he tried to say I slammed my door, I told him slamming my own car door 2 cars away shouldn't set off his piece of shit. I made him walk out to the parking lot with me and as we walked past it, it went off again. He finally got the sensitivity turned down a few days later.

The kicker is it was a beat to shit 97 F-150 (dented to hell and paint peeling, this was 3 years ago) - I only know what year it was because 97 is the only year Ford put the exhaust in front of the rear tire on that generation. Bone stock, stick shift, 6 cylinder engine, bottom of the line model (no power anything), stock am/fm radio (no tape or CD). I can't imagine anybody wanting to break into it.

I've had good car alarms before - they shouldn't make a peep unless someone is physically touching your car. But they weren't installed by hackjobs, the last alarm I had was installed by the "best" car audio/security store in DFW. It never falsed once, and was always parked outside my bedroom window.

I've found that the best way to prevent breakins is to just hide your valuables - I never leave my CDs in the car anymore and when I have an aftermarket stereo, I take the faceplate inside with me every time I park it. No alarm on my current car and the only person to ever break into it was me (locked the keys in it with it running in the middle of nowhere several miles from town, wound up breaking a window).

[blas]

Warning chirp, hehe....I'm stealing that.

My stupid downstairs neighbor does that at night. Anytime she hears someone walking past (a few times it was my mother coming to pick me up when I didn't have a car!), she either peeps out the window or opens the door and sets her car to its warning chirp.

Because every bonafide car thief dreams of having an old lady's Buick with toy turtles on top of the dashboard and those little knitted seat covers and the smell of old woman in the car. And yes, every single person walking past at night just wants to steal your precious Buick. EVERYONE wants it!

[protege]

And yes, every single person walking past at night just wants to steal your precious Buick. EVERYONE wants it!

Reminds me of the shitbox cars outside of work. One of our neighbors owns a beat-up 1980s Toyota. The interior's a mess, it's about 5 different colors...yet has a Club on the steering wheel Not sure why, since it's rusted to hell, and doesn't look like it can move under its own power. Besides, would you rather attempt to steal that piece of shit, or the boss' Mercedes, or any number of employee vehicles...which are *not* literally held together with duct tape and bailing wire?

[Yurimaru]

Oooh, we had FUN with a car alarm once... Four of us got out of our car in a parking garage and we all closed our doors at the same time. The black BMW next to us went off with a siren howl, then it TALKED!

"Step AWAY from the car. Step AWAY from the car."

The four of us just looked at each other, then gleefully set it off about eight more times by closing our car doors or touching it's hood, just to hear it talk. No one else was in the parking garage, so we knew we weren't disturbing neighbors or anything. We didn't hurt the car itself.

Still, I wonder what would've happened if Mr. BMW came back and found us in a circle around his car, tormenting the poor alarm system?

[DGoddessChardonnay]

Car alarms are so annoying, and there's so many false alarms that people don't really pay much attention to them which kinda defeats the purpose.

They are annoying as Hell. At least once a week, we'll hear one going off in the parking lot at the Litter Box.

Nobody ever comes and turns the damn things off . . . and nobody tries to find the owner of the vehicle either.

I guess people have become immune to them because so many vehicles have them and most of the time they're set off because something brushed up against the vehicle or the wind blew a certain way.

[ParkingWitch]

No one else was in the parking garage, so we knew we weren't disturbing neighbors or anything. We didn't hurt the car itself.

Please don't do that anymore.

I work in a parking garage and all day long I HAVE to listen to the morons using the panic button to find their "lost" car.

I need some wire cutters and a ball bat.

[infinitemonkies]

Last night some guy who was parked about 1 block over from the hotel let his alarm go off for 40 minutes.

Thing is, his car was parked on the main street of town, and his alarm sounds EXACTLY like an ambulance siren...but louder.

I'm wondering if it's even legal to have a car alarm that sounds identical to an emergency services vehicle siren.

[protege]

I guess people have become immune to them because so many vehicles have them and most of the time they're set off because something brushed up against the vehicle or the wind blew a certain way.

That's exactly what has happened. So many new cars come with some sort of "security" system, that people ignore them.

But, at least they're useful to keep the kitty off the car He knew, that the Mazda would "chirp" after I'd locked it in Grandma's driveway. A second press of the key fob, and the car would honk once, letting me know that it was locked. If he heard the first chirp, he'd actually get off the car, and not leave his muddy footprints all over it

[blas]

I have a great idea.

As soon as I come across some extra money, I'm going to invest in something that will be more worthwhile and longer lasting than new clothes or shoes or alcohol.

Even though my car is a heaping pile of trash, I'm getting a car alarm.

And I will stealth out Sheriff for a few days, see how he likes it. As soon as he sets foot outside, I'll set it to "warning chirp". When he looks around to see whose car it came from, I'll hit the panic button. Watch him run around the complexes like a rabid ape, maybe running inside to grab his cordless phone to call the police, or maybe just grab it out of his pocket since he usually always has it on him if he's just stalking people outside.

Or...since he's so dumb....I won't even have to stealth him. I'll just go out for a smoke, just as easily, whatever it is that he has in his apartment that senses me being outside will go off, he'll come running outside.....and the fun will begin.

And I'll say "Whose car is that? My GOD that's annoying! Someone better stop that!"

[Andara Bledin]

I think there should be a law that allows anyone within earshot to smash the hell out of your car without fear of legal consequence if you let your alarm go off for more than 60 seconds.

I know that around here, your alarm isn't allowed to go off for more than 5 minutes and then it has to turn off.

But alarms are next to useless. A decent thief can get into and out of your car without setting off a car alarm that is sensitive enough to react to a cat jumping on the hood. I know this only because I used to have a friend whose car was broken into three separate times, but he'd get complaints from neighbors when the cat set the alarm off.

We have people here whose cars are in the spaces behind the apartments. You can't see them without going outside and around to the back, but you'll have people who turn off their cars' alarms through the window without even checking to make sure something isn't happening.

^-.-^