Bid to outlaw car sirens

It is the sound every Londoner dreads at night: the interminable wail of a car alarm.

A private member's Bill that would outlaw new cars from having alarms is to be tabled by Liberal Democrat MP Norman Baker.

It is the first time anyone has attempted to curb the intrusion of the car alarm in Britain, although New York city council has voted to ban devices that sound for more than three minutes.

If the move is successful the UK will follow 33 Italian cities that have outlawed car alarms, with further bans expected in Vancouver, Hawaii, Moscow and Brisbane.

Alarms are already subject to strict rules: a European directive states they should sound for no more than 30 seconds. The maximum noise level is between 105 and 115 decibels, still enough to wake a slumbering street.

The devices are a "total waste of time" according to Mr Baker, who added: "What do people do when they hear one go off in the night?

"Do they rush out to defend the car or call the police? No - nobody does a thing except get woken up. They are useless and very annoying.

"Instances of alarms going off when cars are actually broken into are as rare as a blue moon."

According to Mr Baker, MP for Lewes in East Sussex, when police are alerted by callers to a car alarm they seldom have time to investigate. He said immobilisers, which prevent cars being started, are more useful. He also wants manufacturers to focus on tracking devices that reveal the location of stolen cars to police.

But today the AA Motoring Trust's head of technical policy, Chris Patience, leapt to the defence of alarms. He said: "If you asked a car thief what he thought of banning alarms, he would be delighted.

"Until manufacturers routinely fit laminated glass to side windows instead of the easily-broken toughened glass used at the moment, we rely on our alarms." The AA said that, since the mid-Nineties, car alarm design had improved dramatically so that false alerts were far less common.

About 45 per cent of new cars sold in Britain are fitted with alarms.

However, London's taste for expensive, prestige cars fitted with alarms as a matter of course means that the capital has more than its fair share of the devices.

A recent survey showed that four in five people would support a ban on car alarms.