“Noise [car] alarms are basically designed, so far as we can tell, to annoy your neighbors.” — Kim Hazelbaker, senior vice president, Highway Loss Data Institute, an insurance-industry think tank. “[T]he alarms’ most corrosive effect is on the essential urban virtue of civility. Cities-where millions of people from dramatically different backgrounds live densely packed together-require countless acts of mutual adjustment and reciprocal decency in order to flourish. Car alarms send a message directly counter to such civility. “People who place such alarms in their vehicles show the ultimate in selfishness: a willingness to invade the space of their fellow citizens with a raucous noise that says, ‘I care about my car and couldn’t care less about your ears,’ argues anti-noise activist Dave Pickell.” — Brian C. Anderson in City Journal, Winter ’01.