Alarms: a Help or a Hindrance?

Alarms are useful things. They are meant to protect us.


But do they really?

Banks have alarms, but that’s not all they have. They have armed personnel and thick vaults to protect what’s inside them.


Homes are certainly less secure than banks, but there are certainly tons of companies out there who would happily sell a homeowner an alarm for their home. A home has locks on the doors and windows, and if necessary, a safe somewhere inside to protect the most precious things.


Most cars now have alarms in them. The only thing they have to protect their contents is locked doors. If the car in question is in the middle of a vacant lot, there’s not much that will stop someone who has a big stick and is determined to get inside.


Alarms are useful as one of the difficulties that unsavory sorts need to overcome in order to make off with someone else’s property. But if there’s no one responding to the beeping, honking, and other racket that an alarm is making, it’s not of much use.


Things that bank and home alarms don’t do that a car alarm does are to go off when another bank or home goes by too loudly or too fast, or to go off when the wind blows too stiffly. The alarms at a bank or in someone’s home actually do provide the extra level of protection that they are meant to, because someone is paying attention when they go off.


The only people paying attention when a car alarm goes off are the ones that were, until it started going off, trying to go to sleep.