I was told yesterday by a friend who has a pacemaker that someone was about to give him a lift in what he called an 'electric car' (my guess would be Prius or Lexus hybrid, as I can't imagine anyone offering anyone a lift in a GWhiz) when they thought of checking the instruction book (a substantial document, my friend said, laughing) to see whether these vehicles are contra-indicated for pacemaker wearers (or Robocops as we prefer to be known).
It turns out that they are, along with scrapyards, public address loudspeakers, airport metal detectors and military radar installations.
So no ride in a Prius for me then. There are so many in the streets round here that I may be at risk anyway.
Ban these deadly machines now!
|
You could make a simple Faraday cage and wear it round your midsection....
madf
|
What does the manual say?
There may be a warning about the remote locking on the key, which is RF based, but I'm not aware of anything specifically to do with the car having electric bits in...
|
The thing to avoid with pacemakers is strong magnetic fields. Since magnetic fields are used to adjust and set pacemakers remotely, without any physical connection, one assumes strong random magnetic fluxes may upset or deregulate the device (which, for those who don't know, is to control a heart rate that is irregular or too fast or slow if left to itself). Doubtless the big reversible electric motors in hybrid vehicles, suddenly absorbing or generating large amounts of electricity as the car accelerates and goes up and down hills, make surges of magnetic flux that are potentially harmful.
I believe with matters of this sort people tend to err on the safe side. Probably you could work in a scrapyard or as a roadie wearing a pacemaker and not come to harm. So it's reassuring to have an excuse not to.
|
|
|
|
You could make a simple Faraday cage and wear it round your midsection....
Would a spring steel corset work?
|
"Would a spring steel corset work?"
It would need an earth strap welded on and trailing on the ground.
|
|
|
|
A Faraday cage gives protection from electromagnetic radiation and high voltage discharges, but is it effective at shielding magnetic fields?
Testing a compass enclosed in earthed wire mesh suggests that it isn't, so not to be relied on. :-)
|
|
Some of the newer trucks I work on have warnings in the drivers handbook about pacemaker users going close to the engine when it's running.
|
|
Perhaps the car manufacturers are being paranoid, unless there is something particular about the mangeto-electrics in a car that differs from those in a train, a tram, a trolley-bus etc.
|
Lud,
Are you willing to be a guinea pig in a TG type experiment conducted by BRers?
|
TG Experiment?
It has a binary outcome.
Tough on Lud if the actual outcome is his demise:-(
madf
|
|
|
Lud, Are you willing to be a guinea pig in a TG type experiment conducted by BRers?
Naturally I would trust anyone on this site with my life, especially if I am allowed to wear one of these Paco Rabanne chainmaqil tee-shirts people are keenly designing for me.
But on reflection, Westpig, er, no.
|
The question is, is Luds carbon footprint greater than the rest of us? Ie how much was used up to manufacture his robotic parts, and how much is consumed to generate the waves to regularly regulate him?
Should he be disposed of in the interests of global warming?
------------------------------
TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
|
or would the costs and hazzards of Lud disposal be worse than keeping him alive? Can we afford to let him die!
------------------------------
TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
