Some are so loud they sound more like explosions and set off car alarms.

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Some of the noise is typical of any developed country - jackhammers, drills and car alarms.

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They have become as ubiquitous as car alarms, which seemingly are standard equipment on all but the cheapest autos.

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Yet the police are happy to attribute a 53% decline in the burglary rate in Washington's inner suburbs, between 1977 and 1997, to Neighbourhood Watch and car alarms.

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Then, the sound of car alarms can be heard.

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An antic philosophical comedy about a frustrated New Yorker, David Owen (Tim Robbins), who is going nuts from the city racket, especially car alarms, which, easily set off, interrupt his lovemaking with his wife, among many other things.

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Minutes later four youths smashed windows at the Asda supermarket off Bradford Road and stole five televisions which were found abandoned in the car park after alarms were activated.

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