Transportation Alternatives released a report this week that documented what most people know — that car alarms are far better at annoying and keeping awake NYC residents than they are in preventing car thefts. The study suggests affordable, effective alternatives to car alarms, such as brake locks and personal pager car alarms.

The study, "Alarmingly Useless: The Case for Banning Car Alarms in NYC," uses NYC insurance claim data, hundreds of responses to an online poll, and other data to assess the effectiveness of car alarms, and their status as a public enemy.

T.A.’s online survey overwhelmingly demonstrated that car alarms are a negative, widely hated phenomenon. 91% of respondents said car alarms reduced quality of life, and 76% said car alarms keep them awake at night. The online survey also found that only 5% of the respondents have responded to the sound of an alarm by calling the police about a possible theft, while a whopping 60% have called cops to complain about car alarm noise.

At the same time, car alarms are not effective in preventing thefts. 95-99% of all alarms are false, and cars with alarms are just as likely to be broken into those without. Alarms do so little to halt thefts that insurance companies are pulling back discounts they once offered to car owners with alarms, T.A.’s Aaron Naparstek told the Daily News.

Transportation Alternatives concludes that the psychological and economic damage of these alarms may cost New Yorkers up to $400-$500 million a year in public health costs, decreased property values, lost productivity, and diminished quality of life.

"Everyone hates car alarms but no one has been doing anything," said T.A. director John Kaehny. "We want to get rid of these things once and for all."

Last spring, City Councilmember John Liu introduced a bill that, if enacted, would ban the sale and installation of car alarms in NYC. T.A. is looking to change that legislation so it would provide an outright ban of car alarms in NYC. The group is also calling on Speaker Gifford Miller to introduce legislation in City Council that will completely ban car alarms in the five boroughs. It also wants Mayor Bloomberg to incorporate the alarm ban into his Operation Silent Night campaign, begun in October of 2002.

It’s unclear why Liu’s bill has languished in the Council for nearly a year. It is up to the Council’s Committee on Environmental Protection, headed by Queens’ James Gennaro, to schedule a hearing on the matter. Anti-alarm activists say the committee has told them it is busy. On March 26, the committee is scheduled to take up the issue of amending the city’s administrative code, "in relation to the purchase of re-refined motor oil by city agencies for use in city vehicles."

Council members would probably find a lot more public interest in banning car alarms. Last Thursday, psychology Professor Harold Takooshian of Fordham University organized a conference on banning car alarms. Dozens attended, with the overwhelming majority in favor of the ban.

To read the T.A. report and send a letter to Speaker Miller supporting a car alarm ban, log onto www.BanCarAlarms.org.Ý

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