A Selection of Car Alarm Resources Politicians If you live in New York, find out who represents you in the New York City Council. Then write two letters, one to your Council member, and one to City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, City Hall, New York NY, 10007. Tell them what you think about car alarms. (When I say "write a letter," I'm talking about a signed piece of paper, including your name, address, and phone number, sent through the US Postal Service. Email and faxes are far less effective.) Before the Silent Majority campagin, the City Council most recently addressed the issue in 1997, when Gifford Miller co-sponsored a bill to ban the sale and installation of car alarms (scroll down for the article.) Note that Miller wanted to ban the alarms entirely, but feared that it "would prove an unconstitutional action against interstate commerce". This specious legal argument has been put to rest here by attorney Mateo Taussig-Rubbo. In fact, nothing prevented the City Council from banning car alarms...except perhaps the misleading lobbying campaign from Darrell Issa's Consumer Electronics Association. NPR's "Living on Earth" covered the story of the 1997 bill here, during the early stages. To read about Issa's earlier attempts to lobby City Council, see Bruce Weber's article, "Bill to Quiet Wailing Car Alarms Draws Criticism," New York Times, Apr. 21, 1992 pp. B1 The new campaign against car alarms got off the ground in 2003. Transportation Alternatives released a report on car alarms. The report was unveiled at a Fordham University symposium. City Council member Eva Moskowitz introduced new car alarm legislation. (Press releases from her office are here and here. The law her bill would amend is here.) The bill got a hearing on June 11, 2003 (transcript here). A final hearing was scheduled for December 11, 2003, but was postponed at the last minute by Speaker Miller. Eventually, after an anti-alarm rally on the steps of City Hall, the City Council passed a weaker bill, first proposed by John Liu, that bans the sale and installation of certain car alarms. New York is not the only city to consider a car alarm ban. Thirty-three Italian cities have banned car alarms. Moscow banned them last summer. Vancouver is considering a ban (see here, here, and here). So is Queensland, Australia. Thanks to the success of immobilizers, many European cities never had an alarm problem in the first place. If you're interested in banning car alarms where you live, please get in touch with the Noise Pollution Clearinghouse.