A few nights ago I was driving in our car and I received a phone call from our vehicle tracking company enquiring if everything was alright. This was no courtesy phone call as I had apparently unknowingly pushed the panic button. The little square attachment on the keys is apparently an alert panic button and when pressed alerts the tracking company.
I can recall vehicles that had the immobilizers and you had to run the deactivator over the button placed in the dashboard before you could start the vehicle. Those days are long gone and this vehicle has 5 tracking units installed on the vehicle which should mean if stolen it will be found very quickly via the security tracking teams before it is stripped for parts or whatever the criminals are planning.
I had been wondering what this was and now know due to me placing the keys in the side console and then placing my phone on top of the keys so somehow the phone pressed the button and alerted the tracking company. The problem was it was not just one accidental press of the button and had been continuous for some time.
I apologized and informed them it was a genuine mistake and will be more careful where I place the keys in the future. This reminds me of the house alarm we had on or Durban property with leaves blowing in the garden and triggering the activation beams. If you set off the house alarm enough times then at some point the security armed response will not take you seriously and when you need them they will not arrive.
I found out later that month when the monthly bill arrived that there was a cost to the multiple responses and decided it was financially wise to upgrade and install beams with multiple lasers. This way if a leaf blew through the beam light this would not trigger the alarm as there was another beam than needed to be blocked in order to trigger the alarm.
Security is a must in South Africa not only for your safety, but also this is required for insurance purposes otherwise if does affect your contents cover. If you have no alarm or it was not activated when you left the premises then you are not covered.
Where you live also effects your car insurance premiums whether you park on the street (not likely) or in the driveway and whether you have an electric fence plus an armed response monthly contract. The better the area and having full blown security can reduce your premiums by as much as 40% so it is advisable to have all the extras. These are all the questions you are asked when applying for car or household contents insurance.
We have a house alarm system, but to be honest we rarely put it on as it is a hassle and most likely needs a service. With dogs running around and sensors in the various rooms you need to know which rooms to bypass and eventually after enough false alarms you find out the sweet spot. We normally always have someone in the house at all times so we avoid the alarm setting process, but the alarm does need to be set up again just in case.
Having guard dogs does kind of make things slightly easier and if by chance we are all out we lock the internal security gates and have the dogs running loose inside and they have access to the outside as well. We reside in a gated community which makes life far simpler compared to those residing on the other side of the wire. Having experienced both sides there is no chance I am going back to those days of having to worry about things sleeping with one eye open and literally guarding the house over weekends sacrificing precious sleep.
The good news is I now know what that extra fob is on the key ring and will be more careful in the future making sure it is not activated in error.
