What would happen if when driving you get hit by Lightning?

Answer 1

Yes, cars do get hit by lightning.

Lightning, as Benjamin Franklin proved is electricity. It is a static electrical discharge that has broken down the electrical resistance of air for many thousands of feet. Air is a very good resister and it takes a lot of energy to break it down to allow the flow of electrons to pass through it. In fact the voltage of lightning can be as much as 100,000,000 volts. Voltages this high can easily go through any substance know to man. That includes glass, rubber, wood, anything you can name it will go through. So forget about the tires protecting (or rubber soled shoes) you from lightning.

However, a car (a hard top, not a convertible) is indeed a reasonable safe shelter from lightning but is not the tires that make it safe. The charge of electricity that makes up the lightning bolt will go the easier route of through the metal which surrounds the people in the car rather than through the people. The car's body acts like a Faraday Cage (google it) and as such provides a reasonably save haven for the people inside.

It should make little difference whether you are touching the metal of the car (as long as you do not have a foot or some other body part touching the ground outside the car) or not because you become like the birds perching on the electric lines with the metal parts of the car all having the approximate same electrical potential ( but, I sure wouldn't want to test this theory.) The charge normally (due to the wet tires) goes to the ground over the outside of the tires. If the tires are dry, and that has happened, it often will blow up one or more, sometimes, all 4 tire(s) due the air in the tire being rapidly heated by the flow of electricity through them to the point they can’t handle the high pressure.

Boom!!

As someone mentioned, I started carrying extra underwear after my experience with a lighting strike on a storm chase.

Answer 2

The tires do not protect you from lightning at all. That is a very common myth. The reason you are safe in a car from a lightning storm is because the metal body of the car acts as a shield. When lightning hits the car the electricity follows the frame of the car and out through the tires into the ground. The tires might be a reason that lightning rarely strikes you car along with the fact that it is not very tall but these are not what protects you.

I would say that anything computer wise might flicker or be disrupted but they should not be permanently harmed. It also depend on whether the lightning strike is positive or negative. Should the strike be negative which is weaker then nothing permanent will be messed up but should it be positive then you might need to get any electrical stuff checked out.

Answer 3

The safest place to be in whenever there are lightnings is in the car. Because cars are insulated by rubber. Nothing will happen to you even if you're driving because the lightning will not be attracted to hit the car.

Answer 4

the tires would insulate the car from ground and because lightning travels from ground up, it wouldn't hit the car. That's why in mobile cranes training they teach operators to stay INSIDE the vehicle if hit a power line because the TIRES insulate the charge from going ground.

Answer 5

Actually, from what I remember of physics, it isn't the rubber tires that insulates you. The metal body of the car acts as a conductor and the lightning follows that down to the ground. As they say - a car is one of the safest places you can be during an electrical storm.

Answer 6

What would happen? I would probably be scared to death. Other than that, my car's engine would probably die as the lightning fried my electronics. And I would probably be temporarily blind and deaf.

Other than that, not much

Answer 7

Do you mean that your CAR gets hit?

I had that happen once, on the way home from Hershey Park. All the lights went out, headlights, radio, dash, etc., and came back on. The radio and clock were completely deprogrammed. That's it. I never noticed any other after-effects....well, maybe I had to do my laundry when I got home, LOL.

Answer 8

seem up "Faraday cage" electrical energy travels on the outer floor of a connector (steel can = motor vehicle physique" if the stoke could "bounce variety cloud to motor vehicle it is going to no longer be stopped by utilising rubber ranges (if dry) and moisture ( rain and dirt) conducts to floor only wonderful short, extremely loud bang and flash, probably grimy below clothing no harm performed

Answer 9

Wouldn't happen.The rubber tires on your car would protect you from the lightning.

Answer 10

You should be insulated by the rubber on the tires -- or so I've heard. But hopefully I won't get to experience this scientific question first hand in my lifetime.