THE REAL AUTOMOBILE INDUSTRY DISASTER

©1982 Mark B. Anstendig

One of the great ironies of well-meant government regulation is the following technological mess in the automobile industry.

Most automobiles manufactured since approximately 1973 are mechanically defective. This is because measures that had to be taken in order to meet anti-smog regulations demanded that the engines be changed in such a way that it is no longer possible for them to run evenly when idling, and in many cases even when given gas. The motors surge and fire unevenly causing the car-bodies to shake and shudder erratically in irregular, unsymmetrical rhythmical patterns. This not only happens while standing still; it also happens whenever the driver has his foot off the gas while the car is rolling, which is a considerable amount of the time in city driving. The result is an erratic, jiggly ride which is usually thought to be due to bad streets.

The negative effects are twofold:

1) mechanical: the life of the car is affected, causing irregular, premature wear on key parts of the engine, and the integrity of the body is adversely affected, in quite the same way that shaking any machine roughly would cause joints, etc., to loosen prematurely;

2) physical: sitting in such an erratically vibrating and shaking car is bound to have a negative effect on our physical health: the moving parts of our bodies (heart and circulatory system, digestive organs, respiratory system, voluntary and involuntary muscular movements) are influenced by, and take on the erratic characteristics of the car's movements, with various physical and mental results depending on the specific abnormality of the car and the characteristic physical weaknesses of the person.

MECHANICAL

Forces that can cause the car body to shake and shudder irregularly must have considerably more strength than those causing even, back-and-forth movements, because the forces causing uniformly even and steady, back-and-forth movements work together with the car's own natural momentum, but a considerably greater counter-force is necessary in order to interrupt the momentum of the car's own rocking movements and cause the unevenness. This has to be more wearing to body and motor integrity than steady, even, regular movements. In terms of wear and tear on the car, it can be compared to driving over rough, irregular roads and can be expected to cause comparable wear, making more frequent inspections and servicing necessary in much the same way one has to service a car more often if one only drives in the city. At roughly one-quarter the expected lifetime mileage, our institute has had the engine of one such car (a luxury, flagship-model of an American firm)) disassembled and inspected. Key parts exhibited irregular wear for which there was no apparent explanation other than stress due to the erratic way the motor was running. In previous models, this particular motor had a reputation for extreme longevity. Body integrity also did not at all live up to the reputation the car had before changes in the motor, and many other models have been plagued with problems in body integrity that were all but unknown in cars that run well.

PHYSICAL

Like any other machines, the organs of our body are meant to run in a steady, even, regular rhythm and the more even and regular those rhythms are, the better and healthier we feel. Most illnesses and other unpleasant states of being, such as nervousness, hypertension, and ennui, are the result of irregularities in the rhythmic functioning of our organs. All of our body's interacting movements, both voluntary and involuntary, take on the characteristics of the vibrational influences around us. After being on a horse or a boat, for example, one continues moving in its patterns and rhythms for quite a while. If these are even and regular, they usually do not bother us, but if they are uneven and irregular, they affect our bodily functions, often to the point of violent illness (car and sea sickness, etc.).

Recently, the fact that sound has a profound effect on all aspects of our being has been given much attention, with numerous examples of its effect appearing in the media. With sound, and most other vibrational influences on us, our bodies are usually supported by a firm object (the ground, a chair, etc.) when the vibrations hit us. But in a car our bodies are totally enclosed in and supported by the vibrating object itself. Thus, without firm support, we are subjected to all the irregularities of its movements and absorb the characteristics of those vibrational movements more readily than those of most other vibrational sources. While it remains for medical science to categorize the specific effects of these aberrations on our health, THERE IS NO CONCEIVABLE WAY FOR THEM TO BE BENEFICIAL. They can only be viewed as essentially detrimental to us and to be avoided.

Everyone has a right to demand that his auto run evenly, with no irregular spurts, shudders, shakes, surges, etc., at all, because a car that does not do so is mechanically faulty, with or without smog controls. Contrary to general opinion, these problems are not simply the result of smog devices being added onto otherwise normal motors: in order to accommodate the devices, the motors themselves have been internally changed so that THEY CANNOT RUN EVENLY EVEN WITH THE SMOG-DEVICES DISCONNECTED! This is the ultimate irony and horror of the situation: people who are pressing to relax the regulations so they can restore their cars to normal will find that their cars will still run erratically, even if they are allowed to disconnect the devices.

Imagine a worker for the auto industry driving to work in one of these erratically vibrating cars. By the time he gets to work his body has absorbed the coarse, erratic rhythms of the motor and will continue to move and vibrate in those patterns for quite some time afterwards. But many such workers are expected to begin working immediately on critical phases of car production demanding finest control and awareness. It does not seem odd at all to our institute that car production, and the production of many other goods, has deteriorated drastically in the last decade. The Anstendig Institute has been able to observe that one's hearing of fine nuance is adversely affected for long periods of time, up to a few hours, by riding in erratic automobiles and being subjected to other erratic vibrational influences. It is only logical that other aspects of our being besides our hearing are also adversely affected.

In America , countless millions of people are subjected to this insidious, unpleasant, and physically debilitating anomaly. In countries without our smog standards, we do not hear of people falling over like flies from the pollution, so it is quite possible that the medically still-unexplored effects of these erratic defects in our car motors could turn out to be very nearly as harmful to us as the effects of pollution. It is our Institute's belief that, if all cars were corrected and made to run evenly, many everyday health complaints would simply vanish, along with many other associated problems, such as lack of concentration and lack of precision in our work-force.

The Anstendig Institute is a non-profit, tax-exempt, research institute that was founded to investigate the vibrational influences in our lives and to pursue research in the fields of sight and sound; to provide material designed to help the public become aware of and understand vibrational influences; to instruct the public in how to improve the quality of those influences in their lives; and to provide the research and explanations that are necessary for an understanding of how we see and hear.

ADDENDUM TO "THE REAL AUTOMOBILE INDUSTRY DISASTER”

© 1982 The Anstendig Institute

To avoid misunderstandings, The Anstendig Institute wants to emphasize that it is not blaming either the auto industry or environmentalists for the fact that it is difficult to find a car that runs the way it should. Its members live on this earth, breathe the air, and are just as much against air pollution as anyone else. But since we personally notice, and suffer acutely from, the way erratically running cars affect our physical stability and degrade our sensory perceptions, particularly sight and sound, we can only conclude that one potential health hazard has resulted from eliminating another.

Contrary to wide-spread belief, it was not possible to simply add smog devices to already existing motors. The motors had to be significantly modified to accommodate the devices and the modifications in the motors themselves are a major source of the unevenness. Designing a perfectly balanced motor is a major technological problem in itself, even without additional problems. The world has since seen the immense problems of bringing out new lines of automobiles on command, so to speak, and the way those problems have almost ruined the industry. We therefore cannot blame the industry for their approach to smog controls when they were first required, nor can we blame those who wanted better air as soon as possible. We do, however, feel that technology has now reached a point where it is possible to make a car that runs the way it should, even surpassing emissions standards, without sacrificing any desirable features.

We feel the objective now should be to eliminate ALL irritants. 

The Anstendig Institute is a non-profit, tax-exempt, research institute that was founded to investigate stress-producing vibrational influences in our lives and to pursue research in the fields of sight and sound; to provide material designed to help the public become aware of and understand stressful vibrational influences; to instruct the public in how to improve the quality of those influences in their lives; and to provide the research and explanations that are necessary for an understanding of how we see and hear.