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The article offers information on scientific revolution. The author is perplexed by the fact that the scientific revelation took place in Europe and not in China which he considered more ready for such changes. He also noted that all countries adopt technologies which came from Europe or North America. These include steel frame buildings, airplanes, automobiles, scientific agriculture, and factories. The rise of superculture has eventually caused the progress of the human race, and its rise followed the emergence of science. However, the rise of superculture created great increase in the inequality of world incomes.

The article discusses a report based on a research by R. Stephen and Margaret F. Fells of the Chemistry Department at the University of Chicago about the energy cost of automobiles in the United States. The research aims to provide the Institute of Environmental Quality of State of Illinois with aid in making decisions on the disposal of automobile hulks and of solid waste in general. It also analyzes one aspect of how to use materials and energy from a thermodynamic perspective. The study concludes that recycling junked automobiles and reusing the scrap in the manufacture of new ones would realize reductions in total power consumption.

The article presents a discussion of the confrontation between air quality standards and the internal combustion engine in Los Angeles, California. The confrontation has become an issue when the Clean Air Act of 1970 came out. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has implemented regulations on car manufacturers to reduce automobile emissions. It is requiring the states to meet the federally-set air quality standards by 1975. The greatest benefit of the Act has been its foresight in encouraging land use and transit controls.

The article talks about thermodynamic analysis and the means for achieving thermodynamic and environmental thrift. An analysis of the potential stored in the environment, which are in the form of energy and order, and their possible uses are offered. It discusses the system used in thermodynamic analysis, which consists of the materials that become the manufactured object. The thermodynamics associated with the manufacture of automobiles is offered as an example of this analysis. The means for achieving thrift include recycling, extending the life of the machine, and comparing the real and ideal costs.

In this article, hypotheses based on land-use patterns within cities are tested. Grocery store locations in the city of Lansing, Michigan, for the time periods 1900, 1910, 1920, 1930, 1940, 1950 and 1960 were used to indicate commercial land-use patterns. As a check on some of this work, a quadrant method, based on the Poisson distribution was used. The advent of new and faster means of transportation, better roads and the ability of nearly all of gainfully employed people to own an automobile have caused a transportation revolution.

Automobile insurance rates in Canada are promulgated by the Canadian Underwriters' Association (the C.U.A.) and all member companies are bound to adhere to them. Other rate schedules are set out by the Independent Automobile Insurers' Conference and by the Independents, but these usually conform very closely to the C.U.A. rates, so that the C.U.A. rate manual actually provides the basis for all automobile insurance premiums in Canada [2]. Consequently, the question of whether the C.U.A. rate-making procedure yields premiums which accurately reflect risks is interesting. In this study, the determining features of the C.U.A. approach are applied to situations in which risks are known. Comparison of C.U.A. rates with actual risks then yields an assessment of the validity of the C.U.A. procedure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents an analysis of the motor industry in Great Britain in 1914 from several points of view. Growth of output; Sources of capital and of enterprise; Techniques of manufacture; Nature of the trade's strength and shortcomings; History of the motor industry; Important figures in the motor industry.

The article focuses on the economic factors in large families. The relationships between family size and such items as emotional stability, parental and child intelligence, social status, occupation, school work, marital happiness, personal adequacy, ideal number of children, fertility planning, alcoholism, family disorganization, and the family in various cultures have been investigated. Data were analyzed separately for each of the seven variables relative to number of children, home ownership, number of automobiles, number of telephones, number of radios, number of television sets, and monthly and annual income. Inter-correlations among the seven variables revealed the highest figure between income and television, next highest rankings in order of size were reported for income and automobiles, radio and automobiles, income and home ownership. The only large negative correlation that emerged was that between home ownership and telephones. While many people who are renting their homes do not possess the other items, they do have a telephone.

There has been increasing recognition of the cost of the automobile in recent years. With few exceptions (see GALBRAITH, 1958), economists have not quarreled with the resource expenditure on producing, maintaining, and providing operating facilities for automobiles. These choices are made by consumers in a free society and to disagree with them is to disagree with consumer sovereignty. Associated with the automobile, however, is another cost: the destruction of people and property in accidents. In U.S. auto accidents in 1965 over 32,000 people were killed and about 2,400,000 were injured severely enough to lose time from work. These figures are increased to 50,000 fatalities and 3,600,000 injuries when all motor vehicle accidents are taken into account. In addition, the National Safety Council estimates that $3.1 billion of property damage was done in motor vehicle accidents in 1965.
Such groups as the National Safety Council, casualty insurance companies, and the U.S. Congress have concluded from these observations that something must be done to diminish the number and severity of accidents. In this paper we perform an economic study of the value of four automobile safety features: padded instrument panels, (lap type) seat belts, energy absorbing steering columns, and dual braking system. Our aim is an assessment of the benefit and cost of each of these features.[1]
The safety devices which we consider in this study are four of the mandatory safety devices on 1968 automobiles. Government intervention is certainly one way to decrease the number of automobile accidents, but this accident reduction is not an economic justification for government intervention. Any sort of interference with the market has a cost which must be weighed against the possible benefits. The economic justification for government intervention is a substantial market failure. There is not sufficient evidence to conclude that various safety features ought to be mandatory. The ... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the author's observations and comments on the occurrence of environmental problems in Los Angeles, California. He suggested on the possible causes of the environmental problems in the state such as the excessive use of private automobiles. He elaborated that the situation in Los Angeles is only a manifestation of the basic problem of the American culture over the past decades. He also mentioned the kinds of technical laws and plans that have been suggested to solve the problems such as the reduction in the burning of fossil fuel.

The article reflects on automobiles in Albany, New York. The author comments by raising a question whether there have been more space necessary for all the automobiles that the city government would like to buy, as well as for those automobiles that would be discarded. Another aspect on which the author noted is on the space to congest and clog up the city streets, so that they can neither be cleaned properly in the summer, nor the snow could remove them in the winter.

An article by R. A. Holmes on the subject of discriminatory bias in rates charged by the Canadian automobile insurance industry is misleading. Automobile insurance rating regulatory statutes in the U.S. and in Canada contain three basic requirements: rates shall neither be excessive, nor inadequate and they shall "avoid unfair discrimination." This last condition recognizes that fair discrimination is a requirement in the rating structure for automobile insurance, if the public is to be served by pooling risks among fairly large groups. In the author's judgment, Holmes does not have a clear understanding of this and overemphasizes the mathematician's or classical statistician's views in his article which opens and closes charging "discriminatory bias." The article should be read with a complete understanding of the practical and legal requirements of the automobile insurance industry. Canada-wide statistics cover fewer cars than are insured in a number of individual states in the U.S. As in the U.S., countrywide data are reviewed by interpretive bodies primarily to dampen the effect of chance fluctuations and to produce stable differentials.

The article presents the findings on carbon monoxide emission by Robert Robbins of the Atmospheric Sciences Laboratory of the Stanford Research Institute (SRI). According to the SRI report, nature accounts for approximately 90% of all the carbon monoxide present in the atmosphere. Furthermore, the carbon monoxide emissions of factories and automobiles amounting to around 400 million tons is responsible for around 10% of the more than 3 billion tons believed to be produced yearly by natural sources.

The article presents a discussion of the developments in motor vehicle emissions. The Committee on Motor Vehicle Emissions of the National Academy of Sciences has reported that it is possible for automobile manufacturers to meet the 1975 and the 1976 light-duty vehicle emissions standards. The president of the Academy, Philip Handler, has stated that effective emissions control will depend on development of public mass transit systems, drastic reduction in the size of automobiles and changes in commuting patterns.

A letter to the editor is presented in response to the article about the advantages of gas-electric cars in the May 1970 issue.