Car Alarm, Anyone?

Essay

When I'm not nose-to-the-screen typing my brain's thought ooze into semi-coherence, I work. For money. That's right, I have a real job, just like every other blogger... because almost nobody seems to be able to make any real money at this effort just yet. But that's another post entirely. This post is about irritation.

So I'm working at my job here in sunny California, as a self-employed contractor. It's a nice business, because there's a lot of outdoor time and I'm always visiting someplace new. The boss is great, too. But today there's a problem. A big one. For not 50 feet away in the next building, some guy's car alarm is going off. Boy, I hate that! And it's not one of the fancy, twenty-style ring tones that cycle twice and then stop. Nah, this is the basic, comes-with-a-midsize, mid-model American car type... the lights flash, the horn beeps. Dull. But it's worse than that.

Because it didn't stop! I worked for three hours at that address and it didn't stop once. Well okay, it did stop, but in a more irritating fashion than hearing the blasting horn, if you can imagine that. This particular car would usher regularly spaced toots, then stop. But not the same number of toots... no, that would be too normal. This car beeped six times, then fell silent. A minute later, twelve blasts would sound. Silence. Then three. Five. Sixty-two. One. I was starting to write a song to match the honks, ending sentences whenever the horn did:

"This real-ly sucks don-key---"

"I want to kill the own-er by run-ning o-ver his--"

"Shit."

"I have a gun and I'm gon-na use it. Sure it on-ly shoots nails but I don't think it mat--"

Dozens of tuneless, rhymeless song snippets like ribbons floating through my head, and I'm forgetting what it is I was there to do! Now it's so distracting it's affecting my performance!

In the past when no owner would show up, I might have taken it upon myself to get the car open and unhook the battery, solving the problem. I'm sure when they eventually returned they would momentarily freak, until they read the patient but anonymous note on the windshield I might leave explaining the actions which came from the powerful frustration building up during hours of unwanted horn sonnet. Perhaps they would understand, perhaps not-- but who cares? I would be gone.

But as a grown and mature man, now I have other options more likely not to get me arrested, because what would it look like to a cop who shows up investigating a car alarm to see some guy trying to wire hanger the car door open? "No, officer! I was trying to unhook the battery to shut the damn thing off!" Sure. They'll believe that.

I could call the cops myself. That's a good start. Or I could try looking in (not touching!) the car to find identifying information from which to call the owner. I could also try to ascertain the owner's location based on the parking spot, if it's an assigned one for example. There are plenty of other options. I could leave, making it not my problem anymore! Or I could call a tow truck if it's on my property. Or I could even pull out a bazooka and RPG it.

Okay, forget the last one... that's a little hostile. But what I DID do, what I always start with, was recon. I checked it out. And that's when it all became crystal clear to me. I walked over to from where the sound was emanating and became enlightened. 

For there was no absentee owner... he was right there! And he wasn't alone, either-- he was sitting alongside a copper skinned, bearded and coveralled man splitting his time between the engine compartment, the trunk and sitting awkwardly upside down in the driver's seat, head pressed between the brake and accelerator pedals, which is where he was at the moment I arrived. 

"What'cha doin'?" I asked innocently, between horn honks which now seemed to be under the control of said coverall dude.

The owner was a little startled and responded sheepishly, "Getting alarm fixed. Hope noise not bothering you."

"Not at all, not at all," I lied. "It's like opera to me. When will you be done?"

"Etrusco trying to trace short. He not having lot of luck."

Ignoring the bizarre name for the moment, I suggested, "Maybe you could cut the faulty wire completely out of the circuit and run a new one...?" I'd had a lot of experience back in my teens in New York City in the early 70's... all of my friends had terrible beaters held together with rope and duck tape and old rubber book straps that nobody used anymore, and we had learned from experience how to cobble a car into rough working order. Most had dozens of yards of lamp wire like spaghetti draped through the vehicle, terminating in some kind of switch block mounted between the front seats to operate some otherwise doomed device like the directional signals, the dome light or the distributor. It was ugly as our junior high principal Mr 'Scar' Scarofalo but it worked, and we didn't care.

Etrusco fell upside down out of the car seat and slammed down onto his soles. He stared at me, and then at the owner, a pale kid with greasy, slick black hair in his twenties, and then back at me. He grumbled, "..."

I have no idea what he said. It wasn't in any language I understood, nor one I had ever heard uttered. It could have been Klingon, or maybe he threw up in his mouth a little, I don't know. But the owner seemed to comprehend because he murmured, eyes wide, "Etrusco say you have intimacy of spindle," and nodded, as if the repairman's comment was some divine prophesy.

"O... kay," I placated, and backed away slowly. I didn't turn to walk forward until they were well out of sight. The last thing I saw was Etrusco tearing the guts out of a VCR. I didn't want to know.

That brings me to my pet peeve of the day. This post is about the outdated and yet firmly entrenched concept of car alarms. I doubt any one of us city dwellers can go an entire day without hearing a car alarm triggered at some point. When it happens, I'm sure you ask yourself if it's a real car theft in progress or if some fat lady just leaned on a shiny car to readjust the straining straps of her tiny Totes. I don't know the answer, but I've only ever seen a car pass by expressing full alarm regalia a few times in my whole life, and I bet those were the only real crimes in a day with thousands of errant alarms.

Oh, how I hate 'em!

And what use are they, really? Unless the owner is within earshot, unlikely if they're in a mall, at a sporting event or getting a massage, they will be of no assistance to their car as it is being driven away to meet its new owner... or owners. The car alarm is nothing more than an ego-stroke at best and I'll tell you how I know. The owners prove it each time they approach their alarmed fortress on wheels, entering and setting it off without a care, allowing the sirens to sound for a number of seconds before they turn the alarm to 'passive', annoying a city block's worth of neighbors time and time again. They are in essence saying, "I have a nice car and you can't touch it." I don't know about you, but that very thought makes me want to touch it, repeatedly, with a wrecking ball.

And what of the guy who first invented the annoying device? Did he give a thought about the endless annoyance he would be initiating, the pastoral silence he would forever be breaking in the futile search for a theftproof car? Nyet. Like most inventions, I'm willing to bet the driving motivation was profit-- big, straining bags fulla cash delivered to his doorstep by grateful Porsche and Beemer owners everywhere. Or maybe it was the idea of hordes of horny ladies descending upon his residence, each wanting to be the first to thank him for protecting her pink convertible baby. No, I'm pretty certain the guy never saw past the end of his manhood, and the pretty painted mouth attached to it, to imagine the downside of creating cities choked with millions of sensitive ear-jarring devices ready to drive the population into acts of blood-curdling lunacy. And here we are.

It's been a number of decades since the introduction of an automatic car alarm but the old design still rules supreme. Oh, there have been modifications and even complete redesigns introduced, some even exhibiting a fair degree of success, but the endless screaming siren is still the cheapest and therefore the most popular by far. It doesn't matter that psychological studies have been created ad nauseum to explain their sociological futility, proving time and again that nobody, NOBODY rushes to the aid of a loud, screeching machine. It's more likely the disturbance won't even garner a quick peek through the window to discover the source, let alone an angry horde bent on capturing the attempted criminal in progress.

Newer designs have proven far more effective. The LoJack Corporation and others like it have eliminated the noise completely. A silent signal is beamed to law enforcement agencies and a GPS directs them to the car's current location, lulling a thief into confidence right up to the point that cops surround the vehicle, guns drawn. I almost feel sorry for the depraved entrepreneur, imagining the bewilderment on his face as he's being loaded head-first into the paddy wagon, retracing his scheme but unable to determine exactly where he went so terribly wrong. Now that's an effective crime deterrent!

Effective but expensive. It costs money to have operators standing by, to maintain a country-wide sensory net and to keep the cops interested in the relatively dull task of reuniting an obsessive person with their beloved asshole-mobile. Shame-- if it were a more reasonable method it could silence the alarm forever and beautify the sound of cities, a rosy scenario which is marred only by the placing of hundreds of businesses with their thousands of employees onto the unemployment rosters. What other choices are out there?

The 'Smart' alarm is another choice. A single, gentle bump against the car activates the system, which plays prerecorded voice messages any would-be car thief will hear, warning them away from the vehicle with the promise of dire consequences if ignored. Further movement triggers any number of anti-theft methods including shutdown of the car's electrical system, rendering it effectively dead; placing an automated call to authorities reporting the crime in progress; high-voltage countermeasures designed to shock the criminal into submission or high-volume blasts of shrieking sirens within the cabin to thwart the crime through temporary ear damage. While each method is on their own a possible deterrent, clever criminals have quickly learned how to maneuver around them, even as designers try to catch up with software which would thwart the bad guys' methods. It's a merry technological dance where everyone comes out a winner, except for the car owner.

Not yet the correct way to end car theft... but I have an idea about that, and I'm damn proud of it!

My solution is elegant, and proactive. It's also cheap. And best of all it's quiet. I say we let the technology of the smart phone come to our rescue at the same time as we allow the car's owner to do the bulk of the heavy lifting. 

Simply install a module in the car which allows the vehicle to be operated remotely using an iPhone. That's it. Here's a scenario:

A car owner goes to the local mall to buy, say, underwear. At some point during the shopping process his phone rings. He can tell immediately the call is being placed by his new antitheft software-- the onboard camera allows him to watch the crime occurring in real time, as well as recording it for court evidence down the road. The criminal is unaware of any prying eyes and is probably congratulating himself for picking an 'unprotected' car... boy, is he in for a surprise!

Now he gets the car started and drives away. It's best to make that process as easy as possible, to avoid damage to the car. All the while GPS is recording his current location as well as his route. At this point the owner can hold off on contacting the authorities until he determines if this particular car thief is just a kid on a joyride or a professional car stripper with chop-shop on his mind. If it's the latter, then waiting until the vehicle has reached its destination solves more than one crime-- then the phone call results in an entire ring of criminals being taken off the streets, and probably finds several other stolen cars as well!

If it's a first timer, the owner can give the kid an experience he'll never forget, quite possibly swearing him off car theft altogether! At some point the owner takes over control of his vehicle, locking all the doors and closing the windows. He directs the car directly to a police station as the kid beats on the door trying to get out. Or, with one push he releases a canister of knockout gas, sending the wayward juvie into a deep sleep, only to awaken in a jail cell. Or the owner could even take the car on a high speed drive, observing the road via remote camera, freaking out the crook into praying for his very survival, right up to the point where the car performs a risky infraction in front of a policeman, inspiring chase. Imagine the story he'd come up with, and stick to... all the way to prison!

Yeah, I'd love to see this idea implemented. Which I'm sure, given enough time, it will. If you can use a smart phone to take pictures and movies, to use as a mirror or flashlight, or to find out if a floor is level... this isn't going to be far behind. And the best reason to implement my idea, of course, is so we can utter the phrase:

Car theft? There's an app for that!

Copyright 2011 Bruce Ian Friedman