Crazy But True

[Janice]

I am watching the Discovery Channel on lightening. They said it is an old wives tale that you are safe in a car because of the rubber tires. They said rubber has nothing to do with it and will not save you in lightening. It is inside a steel or metal car, not fiberglass, that saves you. I wish I could give you a link, but it is on tv.

I searched the web and found this...

The safety implications are that a car with a metal top, not a convertible, is safer in lightning. Also, you should have the windows rolled up, partly because the rain water on the window will help conduct electricity down the side of the car instead of it jumping to a metal part inside the car – you could be in the way of such a "side flash."

A: Your comment is such a good description of what happens when lightning hits a car, and your conclusion is absolutely correct, that I don't have much to add. Lightning experts have been trying to teach people for years that a bolt of lightning, which has traveled through a mile or so of air – a very good insulator – isn't going to be stopped by a quarter inch of tire rubber. Your description of the blown-out tire shows what happens.

http://www.usatoday.com/weather/resourc ... lightn.htm

[nholley]

It is not the tires that save you it is the shell of the car from what I understand. A Motoring show called Top Gear went to a German facility that struck the car with bolt that compared to lightening. When the test was done the guy inside was fine and the car drove away with no more damage than burnt paint on the roof.