As if there are not enough things trying to knock you off your bike already; I have not heard of this happening before, but it makes you think.........
Lightning Kills Motorcyclist
- Thread starter SilverhawkUSA
- Start date
I always been thinking that one is "safe" inside the car when lightning starts as they are standing in rubber tyre,,same should apply to bike's,,should it? :cry:
I mean idont like to ride in storm but some times there is no choise, but in the "Light" on this, make me think is that safe any more...
I mean idont like to ride in storm but some times there is no choise, but in the "Light" on this, make me think is that safe any more...
I don't profess to know much about lightening Marco but I do know that rubber insulation is not the be all and end all. A good friend has recently retired as a 747-400 captain for Air New Zealand. He has been flying at full altitude and hit by lightening. Iasked what it does and he said it shakes things around a bit and can punch small holes in the outside skin of the aircraft.
I somehow doubt that rubber is much insulation to lightening.
Cheers
T
A car, plane or other closed metalic bodies allowing the current to float around such body is a
FARADEISCHER (Kaefig) cage, sorry no translation found. As long as you are inside such cage you are safe from direct shock.
Passengers in a plane are safe but the plane itself might suffer other failures due to the impact.
A bike is not a cage. The biker is the highest point and therefore can very well attract lightening strokes.
Therefore never seek protection under a solitary tree, by definition a strike point. The basic rule is =
stretch out flat on the ground.
This in simple words, others may have better explanations.
Pico
FARADEISCHER (Kaefig) cage, sorry no translation found. As long as you are inside such cage you are safe from direct shock.
Passengers in a plane are safe but the plane itself might suffer other failures due to the impact.
A bike is not a cage. The biker is the highest point and therefore can very well attract lightening strokes.
Therefore never seek protection under a solitary tree, by definition a strike point. The basic rule is =
stretch out flat on the ground.
This in simple words, others may have better explanations.
Pico
You are correct Pico-Pico. When you consider how far the lightning has travelled from the clouds to the ground through a perfect insulator (air), do you really think a few mm of rubber is going to stop it? The English translation for the effect a car creates is Faraday Cage, named after the English physicist Michael Faraday. The German term comes from this. If you have an enclosed metal body, the charge will go around it evenly, leaving anything inside it intact. This was well demonstrated in an episode of Top Gear, where one of them sat in a car beneath a high voltage power source which discharged through the car. It's on Youtube at the link below, and is quite spectacular. Most lightning strikes of planes occur because the plane happens to be in the path of the bolt, rather than the bolt being attracted to the plane. On the ground it's different, the lightning bolt will be attracted to the tallest thing in the vicinity. If that happens to be you on a bike, the charge will use you as a way to reach the ground.