h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

It should be noted that in NZ all cars must be fitted with an alarm that kicks off when you exceed the national speed limit. Naturally all local drivers disconnect this feature almost immediately. However this is not an option for hire cars. Obviously your kiwi friends know this and when leading you anywhere they will drive at just over the speed limit so that in order to keep up with them you have to suffer the *&^%&ing alarm going off all the time.

I just returned from a driving Holiday in NZ. None of the four cars I used had an alarm!

Sadly, this is a viscious rumour spread by Australian seperatist feminists.
The alarms, and there are a lot I will admit, aren't mandatory in New Zealand - they come in with the imported used cars from Japan. Most NZ cars these days are used imports and as such have a variety of amusing and interesting quirks, including but not limited to small warning signs written entirely in Hiragana (sorry about the spelling), turbos that have never worked, badges and emblems for different model cars, hilarious names (the Nissan Cedric is my favourite), speedos that have been wound back and last but by no means least an alarm that warns the driver if they are breaking the law.
Sadly these alarms are a: set at 100kmh and not 10,000kmh and b: devilishly hard to remove from the car. I have seen mechanics, all grown men, reduced to tears and fits of violence in an attempt to find the source of the "bing bong, Avon calling" alarms for customers.
If anything the alarm enrages some drivers to the point of installing a giant sub-sub-woofer stereo of the kind that is dangerously close to the decibel level/pitch that will loosen bowels and cause catastrohpic driving and an urge to watch Kylie Minogue videos. It should be noted that the alarm can always (ALWAYS) be heard above the sound of any known stereo. Driving so fast the speedo needle bends off the top end of the scale does not stop the dinging, the dinging oh my god the dinging...

My favourite car name, as imported from Japan, is the Mazda Bongo Wagon. Close second is some Toyota which, instead of using cryptic anagrams to display the model version (GLS, GTi, RS, etc.) has the phrase "exciting version" written across the bootlid.

I'm still waiting for the "dull version", "damn-this-is-good version" and "crappy version" slogans.

what a load of bollocks i live in the great south island and own a new car which has no alarm neither does any one elses