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Phoenix666 [soylentnews.org] writes:

Car alarms, it turns out, do very little of what they’re intended to do [theatlantic.com]. For one thing, they are supposed to sniff out thieves, but plenty go off when a leaf floats down onto a windshield or a gust of wind blows. If two analyses done in the 1990s still hold, 95 [ncjrs.gov] to 99 [lexisnexis.com] percent of all car-alarm triggerings are literally false alarms. “Frankly, I think they’re a waste of money,” said Dr. Peter Frise, the director of AUTO21, a Canadian government-funded research group on the auto industry.

Perhaps because of that, car-security experts say, people rarely pay them any mind, rendering them even less effective. Since blaring alarms usually mean someone accidentally bumped into a vehicle, or even just happened to play loud music down the street, an alarm rarely means an actual theft is taking place. Besides, if a thief really is trying to steal a vehicle, who wants to approach a potentially dangerous criminal? “You have a car thief attacking your car. You’re going to run out, and you’re going to do… what?” asked Reg Phillips, a vehicle-security expert who works with the International Association of Auto Theft Investigators. “What is in that car that’s worth getting hurt over?” (Of course, one could call the police instead.)

Surely it's because car alarms are useful for measuring the intensity of pressure waves from thunder claps...?

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