I live in a small ranch area town of about 1200 people, a place where many do not even lock their doors, and everyone knows each others names and where they live. I would have thought that if a car alarm were to go off people here would have turned their heads and payed attention, not so. I was in the hardware store parking lot when someone's car alarm went off. I did not see anyone around the car when I approached it so I went into the hardware to find it's owner and tell him/her the alarm was going off. I found the person rather quickly and went outside with them to check the car, the car was gone! That happened about 4 years ago. The hardware is located on the edge of town, kind of out of the way. The local Police department is just across the street and both of our local officers were in the office. I walked over with the person to the Police department to report the theft. Both the officers actually heard the alarm, and both said the same thing to us - Well we heard it BUT you know those things go off so often for no reason that we just figured it was a short or something. Anyway, it was a Viper alarm system with the motion detection module. Same as the one I have in my car. By the way, they got on the radio and about 20 minutes later a Sheriff spotted the car and it was retrieved undamaged. That guy was really lucky to get his car back. Out here in the boonies there aren't that many cars, especially the type this guy had, nice red Porsche.
I used to live in the Pittsburgh PA area. We'd go to the Big Malls at Christmas, you always heard several alarms going off, all at once, nobody paid attention to them. Just fully ignored them and walked right past them. At that time I thought to myself 'What good is putting in an alarm when no one cares to even look at the vehicle that making noise to see if somethings going on'. I felt like I had wasted my hard-earned money on an alarm system.
GTX - I'm glad to hear that you got your insurance stuff wrapped up before they found your truck, at least you won't be all tied up in some investigation because of whatever crime was committed. Makes me wonder just how long they COULD tie you up with something like that? I'm also suprised that it was not across the border and gone without a trace, that is usually what happens. So, have you found your new dream truck yet? Still waiting to hear that you got a new truck and see some pics too(maybe soon?). I was wondering around my dealership today and saw some nice new trucks being unloaded, fresh from Mexico. Your situation crossed my mind as I was thinking about how many of these new ones that just got here would be stolen and return to their homeland. I know that may sound a little strange but that is just what crossed my mind at the moment. Too bad my thoughts NOW have to go there, it was a lot nicer living without crime and hearing stories about it.
CD