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I drove home this afternoon in the Finger Lakes region in upstate NY, and got hit by the worst series of thunderstorms I've seen in years. I checked the weather radar images after I came home, and it turns out I drove south through a west-moving band of thunderstorms that stretched north-south off the map in both directions, tornado watch and all. I had my wipers on 'high' for about 30 miles, at some moments having to slow down to 20 mph, lightning all around, pretty heavy.
Anyway, by the time I got home the rain had cleared. I drive into my garage, get my daughter and some stuff out of the car, and I smell this burning smell in the garage. Asked my wife whether she had put something in the garage that could be smelling, but no. Turns out its my car that smells. Kinda like burnt brakes smell after someone has driven down a mountain with brakes on all the way. Only I hadn't driven with brakes on. Even checked the parking brake (I think I would have been bombarded by chimes if I had tried driving with the parking brake on...). I checked the wheels and wheel wells, to see if anything got stuck, but no.
So that got me thinking: could I have been hit by lightning? I recall that they used to warn that you could get killed when stepping out of a car after your car was hit by lightning. The story was that the charge was still in your car, and since your tires are not conductive, the first contact between the metal parts of the car and the ground is your body when you step out. Same thing like static discharge, but a bit worse. I've heard the advice to slowly bump your car into e.g. a tree to discharge (that was when bumpers were still metal).
As an EE, I can see the point that's being made, but I can't imagine that there isn't a simple fix in today's cars to avoid something potentially lethal. You used to see those 'tails' that people put under their rear bumper to ground the car, but I don't think you see a lot of those anymore. Anyway, I don't have one, and I didn't get killed, obviously.
Can anyone advise? Could I have been killed by stepping out of the car, or is that just an urban legend? Would be a nice one for Mythbusters...
Or do cars nowadays indeed have a simple fix?
posted by 24.169.16...
, Mon, 7 Nov 2005 12:23:55
, Mon, 7 Nov 2005 11:40:18, Mon, 7 Nov 2005 23:37:01
, Mon, 7 Nov 2005 14:14:33
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