The constant sound of car alarms in the 1980s


I don't know where you were in the 1980s, but if you remember that far back, especially if you lived in a place like Los Angeles (where I did) you remember the constant sound of car alarms. Of course, if you weren't there, how I describe it might sound like the rantings of an old guy, but I'm gonna try here in this blog post. 

The sound of car alarms was constant, all day, all night, 24/7, and it never stopped. It became something of a background noise. Sometimes the sound was up close, sometimes it was in the distance, but it was like a rushing river, it never, ever, stopped. No, not even at night - in fact it got worse at night.

Back then car alarms didn't automatically stop after a few minutes. So someone had to be there to go over to their car and turn it off, or it stayed on until the battery died in the car, which could take days. And there were a lot of aftermarket car alarms which were so sensitive that if a mosquito flew by they went off.

By the nineties, most of this nuisance had gone away, but not all of it. In my quiet suburban neighborhood in Glendale, Arizona, I had a neighbor who seemed to always be under his car in the mornings as I got ready to drive away to work, trying to stop his car alarm. It was loud, and I couldn't help but think that it was an awful thing to have to listen to first thing in the morning, but luckily for me it just faded away in the distance as I drove away.

I sometimes wonder if movies will try to pick up on this sound if they do a period piece set in the 1980s? It seems like it would comical to have the hero about to speak a dramatic line only to have a car alarm suddenly go off right next to him, or to have the background drone of the sound of car alarms as part of the soundtrack. It would be historically accurate for Los Angeles in the 1980s, but I'm inclined to think that it won't be done. If you know a movie, or TV show, that has that sound in the background please let me know - I'll be impressed, and maybe a big nostalgic.

Image at the top of this post: with my buddy Cory in 1987 in Canoga Park, California (I'm the one in the ASU sweatshirt - I have no idea who the little girl was, she just photobombed us). If you could hear the sound in the background, it would be car alarms 24/7.
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