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A Selection of Car Alarm Resources Alarm Makers Who makes car alarms? One industry giant is called Directed Electronics, maker of the famous Viper alarm. It might interest you to learn that Directed's owner Darrell Issa, former spokesman for the Consumer Electronics Association, is now a Republican congressman! In the past few years before taking office, Issa gave $60,000 in congressional contributions, some in his wife's or son's name, some on behalf of his company. His CEA lobbying group gave $47,500 last year, $118,900 since 1999 to various PACs and congressmen. Closer to home, he's given $5,500 to "Friends of Pataki". (Information from Common Cause the New York State Elections Board, and the NYC Campaign Finance Board.) Under Issa's tenure, the Consumer Electronics Association has been the country's most powerful lobbying group on behalf of car alarms. In this article, the CEA brags about how they helped defeat a New York City attempt to regulate alarms in 1997. Now Issa is moving on to bigger projects. He is trying to give American companies a monopoly on cell phone infrastructure in the rebuilding of Iraq, and recently lead the recall drive against California governor Gray Davis. But as a member of the Congressional Automotive, Performance, and Motorsport Caucus, he hasn't given up his first love: promoting noise pollution. And would you believe that Issa is a three-time car thief? (Now you, too, can live the Issa experience with this commemorative T-shirt.) Another big alarm maker is New York-based Audiovox, which gave $30,000 to congress in the last three years, $10,000 to Pataki, $2,000 to Queens assemblyman Mike Gianaris, and $1,250 to Councilman Peter Vallone Jr in December 2003. For a comparison of audible alarms, see "To Foil a Car Thief", Consumer Reports, Feb. 1997, pp. 20-24. Apparently, it's not so easy to install an alarm. To quote from the article: We didn't find even one professional installation [out of 17 authorized dealers] in which the shop did everything right. One shop botched attempts to install a switch, leaving behind four screw holes and a dent in the hood. Another shop placed the siren on the underside of the hood, where heat from the exhaust manifold could damage it. What's going on here? In his testimony last summer, journalist and former car alarm installer Micah Sheveloff explained: Commerce has been put before proper procedure. The automotive aftermarket industry has been allowed to police itself since its inception, and the lack of manufacturing and installation standards has not only caused car alarms to become a nuisance, but has allowed thieves to more easily defeat the systems as well, tarnishing the reputation of the entire product category. Currently, alarm systems are available to anyone for purchase (uninstalled) in stores and on the Internet, even by such nationally reputable firms as Crutchfield. Installation is left up to the consumer. In most states, a car alarm shop can and will hire anyone, regardless of experience level, to install these devices. More technical information on alarm technology is available here. |
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