One of the main problems with the car key fob, I believe, is the panic button. The panic button is used to activate the car's alarm when you are in a crisis situation. On almost all key fobs the panic button is a red button with word "panic" written on it. It works by simply transmitting a radio frequency to a receiver in the car. Once the radio signal is received, the car alarm is triggered. It is a pretty straightforward system, but it has a major problem. It is just too easy to accidentally trigger. And since it is safe to say that most car owners will never have a need to use the panic button, the annoyance of trying to avoid pressing it outweighs the fact that it is there for safety reasons. If the fob is held the wrong way, rubs against a coin in your pocket, or a small child just wants to press the "big red button", an extreme annoyance, which many would consider noise pollution, ensues. These accidental button pressings also lead to a bigger problem; the ignoring of car alarms. If car alarms are almost always triggered by accident, why should anyone pay attention to them? As a society, especially in urban areas, people have become immune to car alarms to a point where they no longer serve a purpose, even when someone is actually in trouble.
A second problem that goes hand in hand with the issue of an easily triggered car alarm arises when the car alarm is in fact triggered. If the car alarm is set off by accident or there is a thief breaking into it, how are you supposed to know that it is your car beeping? If you are in a crowded restaurant or at a little league baseball game there are so many cars in the parking lot that it could be anyone's car going off. By the time someone actually takes the initiative to see whose car is making the ear piercing noise, the car has already made an extreme ruckus and any potential robbers would have stolen and gotten away with what they wanted out of your car. And therein lies the problem. There should be a way for a car owner to know if their car is potentially being broken into.
4 comments:
Very well thought out on such a simple thing with some major issues. All of the problems discussed really made sense when you used examples and showed how all of them connected. you've got my vote, n' keep the good ideas comming!!
I think this problem definitely should be addressed. I can speak from personal experience in regards to when I hear a car alarm going off, the thought rarely crosses my mind that it could actually be my car. Also, the fact that many people have become "immune" to car alarms is a great example of how often they go off and people don't think twice about the noise anymore.
This is a common problem, I've noticed, and it would be great to find a solution. I can already think of a few ways to do it, and I'd like to know what you came up with.
I think this problem is geared more towards large parking areas, such as shopping centers, rather than worn-down cities where robberies could actually occur. The annoyance of constant car alarms seems to be never ending whenever you are in a large public area. To be completely honest, I don't see any reason for a panic button to even be on a set of keys. The alarm should only sound if someone enters the car prior to certain specifications such as unlocking the car, turning on the lights, ect. A great point was also made that all car alarms sound the same and you would never know if your car alarm was specifically going off. Also, to add a little bit, what if a phone system was added to the car, so once a predator enters, a call is automatically placed to the local police? Many ideas can be generated of this specific topic, I like it.
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