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Those Rubber Strips on Cars

GNC

GNC

King-Sized Canary
Joined
Aug 25, 2001
Messages
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Hard to believe that Mythconceptions in issue 265 have never heard of those rubber strips that used to hang off the back of cars to prevent travel sickness during the eighties.

They were incredibly prevalent, but the reasoning behind them was never really explained. Anyone have any ideas why they appeared (no surprise why they disappeared - they didn't work!)
 
Something to do with static. ;)
 
escargot1 said:
Something to do with static. ;)
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It was something vague like that. When has static electricity ever caused someone to throw up in the back of a car, though?
 
I was told by my science teacher at school that they were supposed to prevent people getting a static shock from the car when they came to open the door, but that actually they made it more likely by grounding the vehicle.

Remember looking around after that and quite a lot of cars then had them.
 
Syncronicity - but I just saw a German registered mobile home with something like a broom on the back. It was almost the whole width of the truck and the bristles were very soft.

Something for the same purpose?
 
BlackRiverFalls said:
I was told by my science teacher at school that they were supposed to prevent people getting a static shock from the car when they came to open the door, but that actually they made it more likely by grounding the vehicle.
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Wouldn't the tyres have the same grounding effect? If that were the reason, why does the travel sickness theory come up so often when explaining them away? I'm looking forward to the FT investigating this one now!

Who invented them? I heard they came as part and parcel of certain makes of car for a while. Ford Escorts?
 
The rubber strip apparently has copper braided into it, or something metalic in the middle.

There's some discussion about them on ABC Online Forum and Yahoo Answers

Some people have heard the car sickness version (the strips may have been marketed for that purpose at one time) and others the static shock or risk of spark while filling up causing a fire or similar.

if you google product search many places sell 'anti static strips', the Halfords version is claimed to reduce radio interferance!
 
Tyres wouldn't earth static. They're rubber.

They were designed to stop you getting those little zinger shocks you sometimes get when you touch the car, getting in or getting out. Because the static is already earthed through the tail rather than earthing through you.
 
AMPHIARAUS said:
Syncronicity - but I just saw a German registered mobile home with something like a broom on the back. It was almost the whole width of the truck and the bristles were very soft.
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That's more likely to prevent stones getting thrown up behind the vehicle into the one behind - sort of a full-width mudflap.
 
gncxx said:
Who invented them? I heard they came as part and parcel of certain makes of car for a while. Ford Escorts?
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My Dad's Capri certainly had them, though I don't know if they came as standard :?
 
They were never original equipment on any make or model of cars. You could just buy a static strip from anywhere. They only had to touch the ground when the car was stationary, not when it was moving along.
 
Ravenstone said:
They were never original equipment on any make or model of cars. You could just buy a static strip from anywhere. They only had to touch the ground when the car was stationary, not when it was moving along.
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They were quite common in the 70s and 80s - though I was always told they were useless. I'd never heard anything about them being used against car sickness though - it was always to prevent the "zing" you sometimes got when first touching the door handles.

Today door handles are made from plastic - so no more "zing".
 
Some people used to have a bit of chain attached to the back, to earth the cars. Those rubber strips did have a metal core, I remember the story about it being to prevent static built up which causes car sickness (not true), I'd have said late 60s, early 70s for the origin.
 
Zilch5 said:
Today door handles are made from plastic - so no more "zing".
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I wish that I were always able to shut a car door without touching metal - I get these shocks quite a lot, though not from my own car, funnily enough.

Anyone know if those dangly strips are still available? :D
 
Even if they did work at first, they were very quickly worn down and could no longer conduct the static to ground.
 
We certainly had them on our Ford Orion when I was a kid and we lived abroad in the late 80s, and it was definitely because they were supposed to help with travel sickness. We used to go up twisty mountainous roads, and there was a certain point on the journey where my sister would always be violently sick - we got those rubber strip thingies to try and stop the interior of the car being pebble-dashed by a small child on every journey. I honestly can't remember whether the chundering was reduced though.
 
Could it be they started out as anti-static strips and people began to believe they were anti-travel sickness strips? Or vice versa? Or were they both? When's the last time anyone saw one? Have they gone the way of the back window Garfield or the "My other car is a Porsche" sticker?
 
Odd- I'd never heard the travel sickness bit before - I only remember them being sold as "anti static".

Now idea how they were supposed to reduce the chundering?
 
I have a vague notion that they were both anti-vom and anti-static, because I think the theory was that for some reason, the static somehow made people travel sick, or maybe worsened travel-sickness. So by fixing one of these bits of rubber to the back of the car, the static goes away, and travel sickness is reduced. I dunno.
 
myf13 said:
I have a vague notion that they were both anti-vom and anti-static, because I think the theory was that for some reason, the static somehow made people travel sick, or maybe worsened travel-sickness. So by fixing one of these bits of rubber to the back of the car, the static goes away, and travel sickness is reduced. I dunno.
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Yeah that was my take on it too.
 
CarlosTheDJ said:
myf13 said:
I have a vague notion that they were both anti-vom and anti-static, because I think the theory was that for some reason, the static somehow made people travel sick, or maybe worsened travel-sickness. So by fixing one of these bits of rubber to the back of the car, the static goes away, and travel sickness is reduced. I dunno.
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Yeah that was my take on it too.
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And mine, lol :)
It DOES seem that static leads to car sickness though; certainly on my son's school trips, any child that was prone to sickness got a 'magic' brown paper bag to sit on, newspaper works too, unless it's all psychsomatic, of course...
 
I would have thought the brown paper bag had a more practical use.
 
I see Halfords is still selling these anti-static strips.
Although I've had one or two shocks off my cars over the years, I've never really thought these strips would be of much use.
I suspect most people think like this too, which might explain why not many of these strips are on cars today.

There's no reason why they would be of any use with motion sickness. It's the motion that causes the sickness, not the static.
 
On an aside I did hear that you dont get sharp points (such as tailfins) on cars anymore as they are now painted electrostatically, and the charge tends to stream off pointy bits and spoil the finish.
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Actual features of any sort disappeared well before painting techniques changed.
 
oldrover said:
On an aside I did hear that you dont get sharp points (such as tailfins) on cars anymore as they are now painted electrostatically, and the charge tends to stream off pointy bits and spoil the finish.
Click to expand...

Actual features of any sort disappeared well before painting techniques changed.
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Weren't pointy bits on cars phased out for safety reasons? Less likely to impale wayward pedestrians in a collision.
 
My dad had them on one of his cars, popular late 70's and early 80's. From memory as people have said they were an anti-static device to prevent travel sickness. I remember some came with a a white zig-zagging arrow pointing downwards.

I remember most people were dubious about the worth. A bit like copper bands for rheumatism.

http://www.ipmart.com/main/product/Cartoon,Anti,Static,Strap,,FD414,35360.php?prod=35360

They are flogging them these days as a way to keep the inside of the car dust-free.

:lol:

Also to prevent fatigue http://www.mizter.com/
 
Weren't pointy bits on cars phased out for safety reasons? Less likely to impale wayward pedestrians in a collision.
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yes a lot were, but tail fins are on the back so unlikely to cause harm, that said I was once reversed into and pinned to a wall as a pedestrian by a car with tail fins, fortunately though the blade like solid steel bumper caught my knee caps well before the fins got my femoral artery.

Strangely though they still let tossers drive 4 wheel drives around, normally in towns, with bull bars on guaranteed to kill a kid in an impact. As if the poxy things werent big enough.
 
oldrover said:
Weren't pointy bits on cars phased out for safety reasons? Less likely to impale wayward pedestrians in a collision.
Click to expand...

yes a lot were, but tail fins are on the back so unlikely to cause harm, that said I was once reversed into and pinned to a wall as a pedestrian by a car with tail fins, fortunately though the blade like solid steel bumper caught my knee caps well before the fins got my femoral artery.

Strangely though they still let tossers drive 4 wheel drives around, normally in towns, with bull bars on guaranteed to kill a kid in an impact. As if the poxy things werent big enough.
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Yeah I saw a documentary on it, the car industry started taking notice of the horrific injuries that were caused by fins and also the steering wheels which were regularly impaling people.

I also think fashion probably played a part.

Agreed 4 wheel drives are awful, unless you live on a farm there is no reason to drive one.
 
I think I remember that documentary, if it's the one I'm thinking of they showed an old film of a car's interior following a fatal accident, saying how though the car was relatively unscathed the driver had been either dashed to bits on the interior or thrown to their deaths, and realising while watching that I drove the same model.
 
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