Opinion Pice by Paul Waddell

If you are electrosensitive, as I am, moving yourself around the planet becomes quite a challenging thing to do. Let’s look at some of the obstacles that we face when it comes to cars, public transport and even electric bicycles.

The very first general issue that can cause problems is the rubber tyre that is on your car, truck or bus. Dr Sam Milham¹ wrote a good paper on this where he described the possible issues with steel belted tyres. In simple terms, rotating a steel coil (the steel belting in the tyre) creates a magnetic field, which in turn may actually magnetise the steel. Then you are rotating a magnetised coil which gives even larger magnetic fields. Whenever I measure the DC magnetic fields in a vehicle they are almost always stongest the closer you get to the tyres. For example, down by your feet, if you are sitting in the front seats of a car, will generally have higher magnetic fields than most other places in the car. As Dr Milham says in his article, you can degause the steel in the tyre occassionally to reduce the effect but basically we are stuck with this one as virtually all tyres are steel belted radials. The recommendations based upon this would be to have a larger vehicle and be a bit further away from the wheels rather than sitting on top of them in a tiny wee thing, but unfortunately having a larger vehicle is frowned upon these days in our woke world. It would also be better to have childrens seats nearer the middle of the car rather than the rear wheel arches.  On public transport definitely do not sit on top of or near to the wheels. 

In a similar vein, should you actually have the opportunity to catch an electric train, which is going to become a rare event in Auckland soon as the rails may be shut down for up to 3 years for maintenance, I would suggest that you look for the overhead contactor which brings the electricity into the train. The carriages that have this are the ones that have the main electrical switch gear and most probably the electric motor. I personally would avoid these carriages as the magnetic field may well be much stronger here. 

That pretty much covers wheels. Let’s look at what powers your sturdy steed. Ten years ago most of the world was told that Diesel was by far the better way to go. Personally I think that this was just a manipulation of the commercial cycle so that many people would buy new vehicles. Diesel is now one of the “most dangerous fuels” and we must all again follow the commercial cycle and now buy electric vehicles. Personally I think that this will also be another short cycle and we will then have to get rid of these horrendously toxic batteries somehow for the next great thing which will probably be hydrogen powered. How could we have not known? Anyway ……

Regarding EHS in general, older vehicles, within reason, will be far kinder on your system. This is because they have far less electronics and what there is is further away from you. Anyone who knows me knows that I always have a few vehicles, serious off road Wranglers are the latest addiction. Some of the other vehicles I have are a 1996 diesel Toyota Prado with a manual gearbox. This vehicle I find I tolerate reasonably well. I was also very surprised to find that I could also tolerate my now almost 3 year old Isuzu D-Max ute. I was resigned to never having a vehicle younger than the year 2000, when at that time someone said to me that the D-Max was probably the most basic vehicle available new and I thought that I would try one. Fortunately the first one I tried was a 2WD manual. I was really surprised that I could tolerate it well. I of course wanted (needed) a 4WD but the only demonstrator available was an automatic. After 30 minutes I looked at my wife Sue and we both shook our heads and said it wasn’t good. This was a real revelation for me. It seems that the host of electronic solenoids and the computer that drives them in the automatic transmission is one of the stronger things that bug me in most modern vehicles. I haven’t driven the very latest version of the D-Max since our purchase 3 years ago but they now have all of the latest electronic stuff so the latest version may not be so good. 

In the past when we have tried to have a holiday overeas, which being EHS is absolutely fraught with dangers, we have had a few issues. One of these is hiring a vehicle. One of the issues we have had has been hidden GPS trackers that really zapped us and caused us to sleep outside in snake infested bush as we couldn’t stand to sleep in the camper van. We tend to hire camper vans now when on holiday as I can’t stay in hotels or motels due to the Wi-Fi and dirty electricity that they all seem to have in abundance.

I now know to specify a manual if possible and to request that any tracking device be disabled. Once the camper van hire company realised that I didn’t want to steal their camper they were OK on subsequent trips to accommodate our request to de-power the tracker for the duration of the hire. It was pretty rough though how we have found these things out, especially when away from our normal support systems. On our first trip, it took two nights of sleeping in the open before we were told that the GPS tracker should shut down after an hour, and then it was just a quiet hour away from the camper looking at the stars before a much better sleep. It still zapped us as we drove during the day though.

That was a good distraction, dreaming of a holiday overseas, but back to cars. So, within reason, bigger is better. Older is often better, but not always so as I found with the D-Max. Once you get any vehicle beyond 2000 it is most probably electrically fuel injected and will have at least 1 computer and the associated buzzyness from the solenoids on the injectors. Hopefully you may be able to cope with some level of this. The more prestigeous the brand and the car the more computers there will be. The latest BMW for instance will have many computers, not just 1. We did try a new X5 and again, after 30 minutes I couldn’t wait to get out of it. And as I said previously a manual transmission if you can find one may be better for you. This brings us to electric cars……

I am now retired but I was an electro-pollution consultant, and in that role I did measure a few electric cars so I can talk generally about them. In my experience the magnetic fields in the two brands of car I measured were not significantly higher than any other modern car with all its electronic add-ons like automatically closing rear hatches and side cameras etc. (really!) This basically means that almost all sophisticated vehicles are somewhat toxic just by the nature of what they have inside them.

It seems like the manufacturers have taken the issue of magnetic fields seriously and have tried to shield the passenger as well as they can. What may be very different in an electric car is the harmonic frequencies that you may be exposed to. When testing in buildings a lift/elevator is generally a bad source of Dirty Electricity due to the variable speed motor drive that controls it. An electric car is just the same, a variable speed motor drive controls the motor(s) and in the longer term this may be proven to be harmful to human biology.

Another major issue that I came across was the massive amount of Dirty Electricity generated from some of the chargers. You generally charge an electric vehicle when you are sleeping, which is also the time when all of the “R” things happen, rest, recover, recouperate, regenerate, you get the picture. This is also the worst possible time to be exposed to high harmonics from Dirty Electricity from a poorly designed charger, as I saw in one instance. And don’t think that you can get off the hook by using solar power to charge the car, the inverter in your solar system is similarly toxic, hence my suggestion that until a non-polluting inverter be introduced – no one install solar power as this will also be potentially hazardous for your health. I can see another article coming later on!

Another issue that must be brought up is the extreme difficulty that the fire department have when an electric car is damaged and catches fire or simply spontaneously combusts. Not only are the fumes extremely toxic to the firefighters but the cars are very difficult to put out with some fires re-igniting for a number of days due to the nature of the chemical reaction that causes the fire. If you do have an electric vehicle check to make sure that you are allowed to park it in underground car parks as many buildings or insurance companies may not allow this due to the possible fire risks.

Other hazards that you may experience in your travels are Bluetooth, cellphone connectivity, automatic collision avoidance braking and adaptive cruise control. If possible I suggest taking a trip through the settings on your entertainment system and if possible disabling Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. You won’t get to play music from your phone or make hands-free phone calls, but you also won’t get zapped by relatively strong wireless radiation. When travelling in a car you are moving at speed in a mobile reflective steel box. Your cellphone will have to go to full signal strength to mainitain connection with any cell sites and you are very close to the Bluetooth transmitter in this highly reflective structure; all things that will give higher exposures that you might experience in other environments. If you cannot disable Bluetooth and Wi-Fi yourself I strongly recommend a trip back to the dealership with a request for them to do this for you. If they can’t or won’t you should consider a different make or car.

A wonderful person I knew who is now sadly deceased told me once about driving down the road and being almost doubled over in pain. He pulled over and a very new European car zoomed past. What he was pretty sure he experienced was the forward looking radar that many new cars have for collision avoidance and adaptive cruise control. As you can imagine, he was very sensitive, but aren’t we all, and just possibly don’t feel it. This has a far greater effect on children due to their smaller and rapidly developing brains. As many more modern cars have these collision avoidance features we are unknowingly exposed to far greater amounts of microwave radiation in the form of radar. It gives a new meaning to checking your rear view mirror for any hazzards. If you would like to see a video of what happens to your brain while exposed to a modern vehicle with Wi-Fi enabled check this out. Could this also be another reason for road rage and accidents from poor concentration? https://vimeo.com/244746945

I really wonder about the mental stability of these individuals that want to give the ability to drive their car to the computers. Don’t they know that most things that fail on modern vehicles are in the electronic systems? I had a VW Touareg some time ago that was constantly plauged with electronic issues that no amount of money or time could cure. I do believe however, that Tesla have recently taken the forward looking radar out of their cars and now just rely on their cameras, to save money, but this has been fatally unfortunate for a couple of motorcycle riders that the cars didn’t recognise when in adaptive cruise control and ran into at high speed…. I am definitely not in favour of being sprayed with strong radar when driving, but we also have to be able to take some responsibility for our actions and not let this so called “Smart” technology make us dumb, or harmful.

Hands up those of you with electric bikes.I can see you at the back just wiggling your fingers.  Shy because you paid a gazzilion dollars for something made out of unobtainium when you could have purchased a perfectly good motorcycle for the same price, or is it just gathering dust.  Same deal goes with charging any battery device, you really need to know how much Dirty Electricity the charger puts out, especially if you intend to charge it overnight as chargers can be particularly bad.  The reason I go on about this is because even the smallest device plugged in can really pollute a house and make life very uncomfortable. 

I don’t often get my meters out these days but a friend asked a couple of days ago and we found that their computer box was the main culprit, almost putting the meter off scale throughout the whole house.  My very strong suggestion is that you buy a Stetzerizer Microsurge Meter and know what your charger or any other plugged in device is creating on your wiring and if it is too high do something about it.

Biography

Paul Waddell started his working life as an Aircraft Engineer for Air NZ and has also achieved a trade qualification in Small Engine Maintenance.  He has held senior roles in sales, marketing, IT and technical areas, some of which were-  Technical and Product Manager for Stihl Chainsaws, Sales and Marketing Manager for Honda Motorcycles, Group Informations Systems Manager for Caspex Corporation and has also owned a very successful small business.  At the age of 48 Paul semi-retired, selling the business, and due to his need to understand his symptoms of electro-sensitivity he went on to achieve a Certificate in EMF Testing from the Australian College of Environmental Studies and was for a number of years a prominent public speaker and electro-pollution consultant and one of very few persons to hold a qualification in this area in NZ.  Particularly in the area of Dirty Electricity Paul has been recognised as a leading figure by Building Biologist both here and in Australia.  Paul has been electro-sensitive for over 30 years and now due to increasingly high exposure levels he has fully retired and resettled in a quiet rural area.  He is still the Electro-Pollution advisor to Building Biology New Zealand.  Though his website has not been updated for a number of years there are some videos of talks given by Paul still available to view.  www.safespace.net.nz

¹ http://www.sammilham.com/Magnetic%20fields%20from%20steel-belted%20radial%20tires.pdf