The crap just has to outlawed, PERIOD!
Whatever happened to 'disturbing the peace' or noise pollution laws?
Posted on 10/27/2002 12:57:37 PM PST by traditionalist
I've seen that, too. Go build your house right under the takeoff path of military jets, then constantly cry about the noise. I have no sympathy. The base was there first and they fly constantly.
Back when carjacking was the news media equivalent of Summer 2001's shark attacks, I had a great idea for a carjacking remedy.
I was stuck in traffic one day staring at the horn/airbag compartment on the wheel of the company van I was driving when it struck me - hey, this thing is just about the size of a Claymore mine!
Why not remove the airbag, fit a Claymore in its place, and wire the thing to one of those car alarm triggering gizmos meant to hang on key rings? Picture the carjacker who thrusts a gun in your face at a stop sign: "Gimme yo car, fool!" "Hey man, no sweat. It's all yours."
As the perp drives away, simply press the magic button... "be-BEEP"... and... ka-WHOOOOM. When the cops show up on the scene and ask about the scumbag, you simply point to a couple of legs under the steering wheel and a pile of hamburger in the back seat.
Messy, but effective. :-)
Invest in Beltone and similar hearing aid stocks now. When the hip-hop generation reaches middle age, your retirement will be well funded.
I also saw another idea that is not quite as lethal but still effective. It is a device that allows the car to start and travel about 100 yds and then it simply quits and acts like it's got an engine problem. It can be rigged with a panic button that you activate in case of carjacking scenario. So the car quits in traffic and maybe a friendly cop comes along to ask if he can help????
Then there's the South African carjacking prevention system that is simply a FLAME THROWER activated by the driver and aimed up at the passenger side or drivers side where somebody would be standing if they were trying to get into the car. Toasted perp anyone?
Dunno about alarms but IMHO banning high base boom box cars is consistent with libertarian doctrine because the things amount to an initation of force. High bass hurts my ears.
In fact, insurance actuaries (those are the guys whose jobs are dependent upon the accuracy of their data) have proven that auto alarms have a significant deterrent effect on CLAIMS.
Say what? Having a car alarm deters you from filing a claim?That makes no sense.
You are either intentionally misinterpreting what I said or you seriously need a lesson in how insurance companies work. I made my point very clear in my earlier post. In fact, the sentence immediately following the one where you quoted me was, "That's the actual amount of DOLLARS that the insurance companies pay out, not the number of stolen vehicles." Having a car alarm does not deter you from filing a claim. But, having a good car alarm does deter some would-be car thieves from completing their theft and does result in a reduction in total claims paid out by insurance companies. Maybe I should explain this for you.
Insurance policies are comprised two types of transactions - premiums (income) and claims (payments). If no cars are stolen, then there are no claims paid. If a Yugo is stolen, then the claim paid is small. If a Ferrari is stolen, then the claim paid is high. Similarly, if the vehicle itself is not stolen, the items that might be stolen from a Yugo are not likely to cost nearly as much as items that might be stolen from a Ferrari and claims paid will reflect this. Both the Yugo owner and the Ferrari owner will file claims if their car is stolen or broken into. But, the claim paid for the Ferrari will likely be much higher than that of the Yugo.
But, here is where the difference comes in. If the Yugo owner should decide to put an alarm on his car (I use the term "car" loosely), he will probably install one of those Radio Shack $69 specials, that can be disabled in 5 seconds by any amateur and hot-wired and driven away. On the other hand, the Ferrari owner will probably install a $900 Clifford or Alpine that has multiple lockouts that would take a thief a half hour to wire around, if he knew where they all were and had a patch kit for the fuel line. Granted that the thief could tow the vehicle and some do. But, most cars are still driven from the scene of a theft, under their own power.
On a similar note, the cheap alarm is more likely to have been installed by a novice, who has no idea how to set the sensitivity of the sensors. A high-end alarm, is ALWAYS installed by certified professionals who know exactly how to set the sensors. The only thing that is not a real threat, that will set off my alarm is a lightening strike within a few hundred feet and if that happens, you won't worry about the alarm going off, since you will be too busy pealing yourself off the ceiling..
The cops just count incidents and don't worry about the value. Insurance companies, on the other hand, don't care about the total number of incidents (pieces of paper that they receive reporting a theft). Keep this in mind:
A theft is not the same as a claim.
A theft is an incident. A claim is dollars paid out. Insurance companies only care about the total value of the claims that they have to pay. The total number of thefts stopped by a car alarm may be insignificant. But, the reduction in claims (DOLLARS) paid by insurance companies is very significant. That's because, not only the Yugos, but the basic Fords, Chevrolets and Dodges are not likely to have top quality alarms installed and therefore, those are the vehicles that are most likely to be stolen, alarm or not. On the other hand, someone who tries to steal a high-end car in a drive away fashion will likely encounter more lockouts than he can disable in a short period of time.
The end result is that, although the total number of thefts may not be reduced significantly, the insurance companies are going to have to pay a lot less in claims, since the value of the cars stolen is going to be less.
The little cheap alarms, especially those that are installed by the owner, have very little deterrent effect, as they can usually be bypassed by the average dopehead in only a few seconds. But, claims (DOLLARS) paid by insurance companies is lower, because there are fewer thefts involving high-end cars, with high-end alarms. When a drive-away thief has to not only hot wire the ignition, but find and disable six or eight lockouts, such as an ignition lockout, a fuel pump lockout, a fuel interrupter and other such lockouts, There is no way that he can drive the car away in less than 30 minutes.
I know that for a fact, because a few months ago, the brain on one of my alarms went south and had to be replaced. It took the guy who installed the alarm 40 minutes to locate and reset all of the lockouts, before replacing the brain. Sure, it could be towed. But, since most stolen cars are drive-aways, I have significantly reduced the overall likelihood of my vehicle being stolen.
You can't refute the author's argument, so you attack him on the basis of where he is from.
Well, not only did I refute the author's weak argument, but you seem to be under the mistaken impression that the voracity of an article is not affected by the personal bias of the author. In fact, I would venture a guess that probably more than 90% of FReepers who read an article in the Washington Post, discount much of what is said, simply because they are aware of the bias. When I go to the polls, one of my criteria for judges is based upon who has been endorsed by the trial lawyers. An endorsement by the trial lawyers is a big negative to me. You must always look at the source, to determine what, if any, bias might be present.
As I said before, being that the author was from a liberal city, where only a small percentage of private citizens own cars, his bias was obvious.
That article was clearly a case of the have-nots, trying to find yet another way to attack the haves.
And, just so you'll know my motivation and bias, I have two SUV's, each with a high-end alarm system, professionally installed. When I buy an H2 in a couple of months, I will drive it directly from the Hummer dealer to the Clifford dealer and have the alarm installed before taking it home. If a few have-nots don't like us haves doing that, then I suggest that one of the reasons that they belong to the ranks of the have-nots, is that they spend too much time complaining and not enough time working and bettering themselves.
Yeah me too but how do we get rid of those pesky high flying jets ? The only relief was the week after 9/11 when we finally retruned to medieval silence out here in the boonies.
BUMP
I remember that! You could always count on Q to come up with some great gadgets. Hmmm... was the movie "Octopussy"? It's been a while.
Then there's the South African carjacking prevention system that is simply a FLAME THROWER
LOL! I need one of those! Maybe if I put it on my Christmas list...
Every damn car on that level of the garage had an alarm. Every damn car alarm was set to go off at the slightest noise.
What happened is that (a) my ears didn't stop ringing for three days, and (b) the alarms kept setting each other off for six hours.
I remember that! You could always count on Q to come up with some great gadgets. Hmmm... was the movie "Octopussy"? It's been a while.
It was For Your Eyes Only.
Great line: "Q! You got the Lotus back together!"
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