WOW... lightning hits motorcyclist!

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That happened not too far from here. My buddy Jr. and I were working on the house when that storm tore thru here and we got out of it as fast as we could. Still got drenched. We got a micro burst right as the rain started. Rains blown horizontally by high winds and when it hit his house the rain and wind did a 180 and blew horizontal again. We hovered under his barn with crap blowing everywhere around us for a few minutes. This area is called "lightning alley" for a reason...
 
But you’re insulated by the rubber tires.....

So you'd think! A good friend had his week old pickup struck by lightning... it blew through all four tires, cooked the electronics, "tinted" the chrome and "colored" the aluminum wheels. :eek:

Needless to say, the truck was a total write-off. I've never seen anything like it before or since, but given that incident, i don't have any trouble believing Tripper's post!

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I know what you’re saying Dr C. I saw a pic of a new aluminum body Ford truck that got hit, all that was left was the steel frame.

Always heard you were safe from lightning in a vehicle with rubber tires, now I wonder if that’s so or not!
 
Always heard you were safe from lightning in a vehicle with rubber tires, now I wonder if that’s so or not!

You're definitely not impervious to lightning in a vehicle. While obviously it won't strike your body and therefore may be safer than your body being struck, there are lots of stories of lightning striking a vehicle going down the road.

I don't know if you guys in the states will be able to watch the video, but 5 years ago there was a news story quite close to me of a truck being struck by lightning and it was caught on camera! They ended up stuck in the vehicle and got lucky that an RCMP officer saw what happened and smashed the window to rescue them.

Truck Struck by Lightning news story

GMA_LIGHTNING_140606_16x9_992.jpg
 
Just proves you can’t always believe what you hear! I’ve heard that all my life, way before the internet!

Watched the video, man, that was unreal! They were lucky that RCMP was close by and saw what happened.
 
Florida does have the highest lightning strike reputation in the US. The word "Tampa" means 'sticks of fire" in native Amercanese.

Wifes Hyundai "lit up blue" as her car took an indirect hit after lightning bounced off an overhead interstate sign as she passed under it on nearby I 4, killed the alternator, luckily nothing else including wife and daughter in car. She was able to make it home, 300 bucks to fix.
 
Just proves you can’t always believe what you hear! I’ve heard that all my life, way before the internet!

Watched the video, man, that was unreal! They were lucky that RCMP was close by and saw what happened.

Yeah that video is pretty wild, they got a lot luckier than the biker in the story Tripper originally posted.
 
My dad was on vaca years back and his car got struck by lightning on the antenna on his way back from Florida! Scared his wife to death but the car continued to run & they made it back home!

BoB
 
Off topic, but I'm telling the story anyways...

When I was a Boy Scout, we took a week long camping/canoe trip. The highlight of this trip was supposed to be an 11 mile cross, portage, cross, portage "day trip" through a chain of small lakes. All went well until the last leg...

Back on the largest lake, now 5 miles from camp, we needed to cross the lake "kitty corner" to get home. We made our way to the approximate center of the lake (in nice, calm conditions) before we noticed a storm building on the horizon. Lovely. The storm came in quick and our leader knew we were in trouble. We paddled hard for shore, but the storm was on top of us in no time...

Lightning was striking the lake all around us and silly as it might seem, every time a bolt struck, everybody lifted their paddles out of the water. (Wooden paddles, fiberglass canoes.) The clincher was a bolt that hit nothing more than 15 feet from our little flotilla...

I'm here to tell you, that bolt hit the lake like a Datsun at terminal velocity. The paddles were again, raised. A dozen adolescent kids (myself included) promptly soiled their trousers and likely set a speed record for "Canoe over a 1/4 mile."

When we finally reached shore, we covered ourselves with the canoes and waited for the storm to blow through. When the skies cleared, we paddled ourselves home.

That, my friends, is a true story, believe it or not. I was scared sh**less and never want to go there again...

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Good or bad, being hit by lightening on a motorcycle. I'd say that was just about "hand picked".
 
Off topic, but I'm telling the story anyways...

When I was a Boy Scout, we took a week long camping/canoe trip. The highlight of this trip was supposed to be an 11 mile cross, portage, cross, portage "day trip" through a chain of small lakes. All went well until the last leg...

Back on the largest lake, now 5 miles from camp, we needed to cross the lake "kitty corner" to get home. We made our way to the approximate center of the lake (in nice, calm conditions) before we noticed a storm building on the horizon. Lovely. The storm came in quick and our leader knew we were in trouble. We paddled hard for shore, but the storm was on top of us in no time...

Lightning was striking the lake all around us and silly as it might seem, every time a bolt struck, everybody lifted their paddles out of the water. (Wooden paddles, fiberglass canoes.) The clincher was a bolt that hit nothing more than 15 feet from our little flotilla...

I'm here to tell you, that bolt hit the lake like a Datsun at terminal velocity. The paddles were again, raised. A dozen adolescent kids (myself included) promptly soiled their trousers and likely set a speed record for "Canoe over a 1/4 mile."

When we finally reached shore, we covered ourselves with the canoes and waited for the storm to blow through. When the skies cleared, we paddled ourselves home.

That, my friends, is a true story, believe it or not. I was scared sh**less and never want to go there again...

.

And that's the story of the time Doc crapped his pants. [cl

Seriously though, that sounds terrifying. I'm glad you all survived! Did that episode make you fearful of the water or anything?
 

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