Several governments have designed non-lethal-weapons as a means to incapacitate the baddies. I think this should be applied to car alarms using a less harsh form of the weapon, such as Infrasound, or extremely low frequency noise (see link). This would be at a volume only loud enough to affect those nearest to the vehicle, or even inside. Intruders, and would-be thieves would temporarily be incapacitated, and a message sent to your phone by the car would inform you of the break-in leaving ample time to contact the authorities.-- shinobi, Jun 23 2006 Non-lethal weapons http://www.princeto.../pdf/9_3altmann.pdf [shinobi, Jun 23 2006] I think, that, when the car thinks that it is being broken into or something of that sort, it produces sound of an infrasonic nature or something of that sort, and it causes the car thief who might have by now gotten into the car, or he might as well be outside, to feel discomforted and maybe lose control over some of his muscles and things like that, you know, and maybe he gets out of the car and then again, he might not.
I hope that clarifies things a little bit, Unabubba.-- neelandan, Jun 23 2006 Oh great. Just what I want. A car thief who loses control of his bowels.-- Galbinus_Caeli, Jun 23 2006 lol.-- BJS, Jun 23 2006 a great boon to those in situations of road rage. when someone forces you over because they've become fed up with your driving, hit them with this and the police will be called at the same time.
i still don't think it's such a good idea to hand out non-lethal weapons though. it removes a great deal of the stigma associated with, say a gun. people would probably sit around in parking lots with the remote fob in their hands waiting for someone to get close enough to hit with this.-- tcarson, Jun 23 2006 //extremely low frequency noise . . . at a volume only loud enough to affect those nearest// Low-frequency sound carries much further than high-pitched sound. Besides, the stereotypical car thief has been immunized to bass sounds by his own car stereo.
If you want to use high-pitched sounds, knock yourself out. But remember that younger people (stereotyping again) can hear higher sounds.-- baconbrain, Jun 23 2006 I can see the movie now...A tweetcar named backfire.-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Jun 24 2006 random, halfbakery