Are Auto-Theft Devices Just False Alarms?
Question: I recently had the traumatic experience of having my car stolen off the street while I was visiting friends. Because it is something of a collector’s item (a ’74 Datsun Z), I figured it had been stolen for its parts and I’d never see it again.
About a week and a half later, however, it showed up in a police impound lot, and while it had been damaged somewhat (it had been slammed against a curb and two wheels were smashed)--and the interior was pretty well trashed with fast-food bags--it was certainly repairable.
So, I was lucky in being hit by joy-riders instead of professionals, but now I’m psyched about it happening again and am considering a car burglar alarm. The thing is--I’m not sure they do any good. You hear alarms going off all over every shopping-mall parking lot in town and no one pays any attention. Also, I’m told that a pro either isn’t bothered at all by the alarm or, on the other hand, that he can disable it in a matter of seconds. Do these things really do any good? --L.S.
Answer: And you and I both thought that genetic engineering was the big growth industry of the ‘80s. Hah!
In Los Angeles, according to the LAPD’s Lt. Dan Cooke, a hair under 52,000 cars (like 51,952) were snitched last year. And, numerically at least, the recovery rate is relatively high--about 82% in Los Angeles, according to Detective John Toland of the LAPD’s burglary and auto theft division.
For the past six years, says Tim Kett, public relations director for the Chicago-based National Auto Theft Bureau, an average of 1 million vehicles a year have been stolen, another 1.2 million have been robbed of contents and another 1.2 million robbed of accessories.
Out-of-Pocket Loss
Put it all together and we’re talking about an out-of-pocket loss, nationally, of roughly $5 billion--not quite as impressive as IBM’s net income last year ($6.5 billion), but close. And that, Kett adds, is a conservative figure, because it represents the dollar loss of car thievery less the dollar value of subsequently recovered cars, contents and accessories.
The national recovery percentage is about 53%, according to Kett of the insurance-industry-sponsored NATB. But, alas, recovered is a catch-all word that not only covers cars that are returned to their owners with nothing worse than a dirty ashtray to those that are recovered as a bucket of bolts.
“There’s a lot more money in the parts than there is in the whole car,” Cooke points out.
So, what can the hapless car owner do about it? Are the alarms and other anti-theft devices currently on the market the answer?
While today’s devices “are getting a lot more reliable than they were just a few years ago,” according to Jack Gillis of the Consumer Federation of America and author of the best-selling “The Car Book” (Harper & Row: $8.95), “nothing will stop a really determined pro--you’re simply buying time with any sort of anti-theft device. I frequently tell people who don’t want to spend a lot of money to simply paste a sticker on their car saying it’s electronically protected, or to take the distributor cap with them. It won’t stop the pro, but it might discourage the joy rider.”
The trouble with alarms, alone--most of them activated by motion and/or forced entry--is the very point you mention and which Cooke refers to as “the boy who cried ‘Wolf!’ syndrome.”
Car alarms have become so commonplace “that no one pays any attention to them.”
While the noise, presumably, might deter a very nervous amateur, Cooke adds, it simply annoys the pro. He approaches an armed vehicle, according to a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Transportation, one of three ways:
--”He disarms it first--usually from underneath.
--”He ignores it until he gets in the car and then unlatches the hood and disconnects, and then reconnects, the battery.
--”He hires some kid to rock the car and trigger the alarm, and the owner comes out to investigate. The owner resets the alarm, goes back inside and the kid keeps triggering it until, in disgust, the owner finally decides he’s got a short somewhere and turns it off.”
The pro’s knowledge that, for at least several minutes, no one is going to pay much attention to a blaring alarm simply works to his advantage--he needs a shockingly short amount of time to carry out what he has in mind.
“We had a Porsche under surveillance recently,” LAPD’s Cooke adds, “and this guy broke into the locked car, got the stereo tape deck out, and was running down the street with it--all in 11 seconds.”
“In general,” the NATB’s Kett says, “alarms alone are at their peak efficiency when the car is parked in the owner’s driveway. Once the car’s away from home the efficiency of the alarm diminishes rapidly.”
Unheeded alarms have become such an annoyance, in fact, that the Los Angeles City Council in ’84 gave police the authority to break into cars if the alarm had been ignored more than 15 minutes.
Like most automobile gimmickry, anti-theft devices range wildly in price. Do-it-yourself devices at Pep Boys alone, according to buyer Steve Blumenthal, start at $29.95 for the basic alarm “up to about $400 for a system that includes, in addition to the alarm, an ignition cut-off and several other features.”
But naturally you can go much higher than $400--$1,000 to $1,500 isn’t out of line for some of the more sophisticated anti-theft devices that put minor emphasis on noise and major emphasis on disabling and time-buying mechanisms.
The fact that the insurance industry takes almost any anti-theft device seriously, says Tim Dove of the Insurance Information Institute, can be seen in the fact that the Insurance Service Office, which makes premium recommendations for individual casualty insurance companies, recommends a 5% credit on comprehensive premiums if the car being insured has an alarm that will blare at least three minutes and be audible at least 300 feet, “or any active disabling device.
“They’ve also recommended a 15% discount in the comprehensive premium for any car that has a passive disabling device and also an inside hood release.”
Without exception, auto-theft experts vastly prefer passive disabling devices to active disabling devices. In addition to the ignition cutoff switch mentioned here, another active device is the commonly used steel bar that connects and locks the steering wheel to the brake pedal.
“Unfortunately,” the NATB’s Kett observes, “people forget, or it takes too much time. With passive disabling devices, simply locking the car activates them.”
Surprisingly, perhaps, very little research has really been done on the efficiency of various types of anti-theft devices--the only work of note being a study by the Department of Transportation in the wake of legislation passed by Congress in 1984, the Motor Vehicle Theft Law Enforcement Act.
“What the legislation did,” a DOT spokesman says, “was to require car manufacturers, beginning with 1987 models, to mark 14 major components in their ‘high theft’ cars with an identifying number--the engine, transmission, doors and things like that. This was aimed at the chop shops, and to make it easier to identify ‘hot’ parts.
“At the same time, though, a ‘black box’ exemption was provided. Manufacturers could avoid marking these components if they developed--for these high-theft models--an effective anti-theft device of some kind as standard equipment.”
Theft Favorites
Times and fads change, but theft favorites in recent years have included the VW convertible (14 times the national theft average) and the ’82 Chevrolet Corvette (six times the average). This year’s favorite in Los Angeles, according to LAPD’s Toland: the Toyota Celica.
“We didn’t have much to go on in conducting a study like that,” the DOT spokesman says. “Chevrolet had started offering a passive anti-theft system on its Corvettes back in ‘81--the system was activated when you locked the door--but the results were pretty mixed. There was some reduction in thefts, but it was hard to credit this entirely to the system.
“Nissan’s experience has been more encouraging. In 1983 the 280Z was popular with thieves--10.9 of every 1,000 Zs produced were stolen. And then, in ‘84, Nissan included its anti-theft system as standard equipment in the successor model, the 300ZX, and the theft rate for it fell to 5.37 per 1,000, a 51% drop.”
What’s the Conclusion?
So, after all this, is the evidence clear-cut that anti-theft devices are really effective?
In spite of the Nissan experience, the Department of Transportation’s final report was cautious almost to the point of being inconclusive.
“It appears,” the department’s spokesman adds, “that these devices can be effective, as long as other factors are taken into account. It’s a lot more complicated than it seems on the surface, and the data we had to study was pretty limited.”
Some of the variables without firm answers: Are people who own cars with anti-theft devices more conscious of theft in the first place, and don’t they naturally park in more secure places? How many stolen cars with anti-theft devices actually had the device not engaged at the time and/or were left with keys in the ignition--a fact not reported to police for fear of having their insurance premiums hiked?
Even the element of dumb luck enters the picture. How many drivers with $1,000 anti-theft devices are congratulating themselves for not having their car stolen--when it wouldn’t have been stolen anyway, even without the device?
