Little noise is made on Island about car alarms
The Staten Island Advance
By David Andreatta and Michael Wagner

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There's been a lot of noise at City Hall lately over wailing car alarms, with two bills to curb incessant sirens winding their way through the City Council.

One bill would ban the sale and installation of audible car alarms in the city, except by auto manufacturers.

The other would prohibit the use of noisy car alarms altogether and provide a mechanism for citizens to report the ear-shattering whoops to the proper authorities. Offending car owners could be slapped with a $500 fine under the measure.

But only a whisper of the clamor over car alarms called by one lawmaker "the most frequent noise complaint" is coming from Staten Island.

While pesky car alarms rank among the top noise complaints in the city, few Staten Islanders are making a racket over them, said Mary Senk, head of the Borough Hall helpline.

"We'll get them occasionally, but not an overwhelming amount," she said.

Officials manning the city's 311 complaint line had the same response.

Gripes about alarm noise are most common on the densely populated North Shore, where passers-by and sloppy parallel-parkers are more likely to set off sensitive units.

"It's a quality-of-life issue," said Mike Arvanites, legislative coordinator to City Councilman Michael McMahon (D-North Shore), who is a sponsor of both bills.

"Some are so sensitive that a clap of thunder or a ball rolling up against a car can set one off," Arvanites said. "We feel that legislation is the only way to combat this."

Council members representing the South Shore and the Mid-Island said they have not received a single complaint about car alarms, and are not convinced the bills have merit.

"I think people have a right to reasonably safeguard their property," said Councilman Andrew Lanza (R-South Shore). "Are there instances where these alarms become a nuisance? Certainly. But there are already nuisance laws in place to remedy the situation."

But whether car alarms actually protect cars is a matter of debate.

A recent report by Transportation Alternatives, a transit advocacy group, found that alarms are annoying and do little to deter theft.

The study, "Alarmingly Useless: The Case for Banning Car Alarms in New York City," concluded that cars with alarms are no less likely to be stolen than cars without alarms.

It also found that car alarms cost the city between $400 million and $500 million per year in public health costs, lost productivity, decreased property value and diminished quality of life.

"The main way they function is to deprive New Yorkers of sleep," said Councilwoman Eva Moskowitz, a Democrat from the Upper East Side of Manhattan, author of the alarm ban bill.

The measure has 15 sponsors, including McMahon.

It has drawn as mixed a reaction outside of the Council as it has inside. The Bloomberg administration has not shown any support for it and the NYPD has spoken out against it.

John Corlett, a lobbyist for the Automobile Club of New York, said he's not opposed to banning new car alarms but doesn't want to see motorists who've already had them installed get penalized.

He pointed out that car thefts in the state plummeted from more than 100,000 in 1990 to 30,000 in 2000.

Still, he said it was understandable why people want car alarms. A state law gives motorists with alarms a discount on insurance.

"An automobile is one of the biggest investments people make," Corlett said. "So it's not unusual for people who have had two, three or four cars stolen to spend the money to get an alarm."

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