Is it just me or did that do surprisingly little to the truck?

[redacted]

Where does all that electricity go? Are trucks like that usually grounded?

Yes.. thank God. God had everything to do with it LOL

It's weird on the replay, it almost looks animated...

>> ^ponceleon:

It's weird on the replay, it almost looks animated...


did I see pixels!!??!

>> ^Psychologic:

Where does all that electricity go? Are trucks like that usually grounded?


The lightning takes the quickest path through the object to the ground (or depending on which kind of lightning it is, from the ground to the sky hurr hurr...anyway) which is through the metal shell of the vehicle, leaving the contents un-fried.

See here - http://videosift.com/video/Top-Gear-Car-Zapped-With-800-000-Volts

[/shameless plug]

No, they're not grounded, but the electricity makes it's way into the ground.

Keeping in mind that the lightening spanned the several thousand foot gap from cloud to ground, making it two feet from the truck chassis to the ground was pretty easy. All the metal truck did was make it a little easier for it to travel for about ten feet.

>> ^Psychologic:

Where does all that electricity go? Are trucks like that usually grounded?

Did a quick search for info.....might be better links but I was curious about the tires so I searched for tires as well in the search terms to see what came up.

Basically it sounds a lot like the TV shows discussing the way lightning interacts with the human body, which is to say it is almost impossible to predict what will happen. You may not suffer any lasting damage from it, or you may be burnt externally or damaged internally....

Cars can have no damage to being totally destroyed because the lightning super heats the moisture in the vehicle causing damage. Plastics melt, tires explode if it travels through them. One of the websites has pictures that look like chemical interaction on the metals but they say they are lightning strikes, so makes you wonder if it happens and no one notices sometimes.

They both say that you are safer in your vehicle as long as you keep your hands off metal objects to minimize risk of it jumping into your body even with the possibility of the vehicle suffering one of the freak damage incidents.


http://www.lightningsafety.com/nlsi_pls/vehicle_strike.html

http://www.weatherimagery.com/blog/rubber-tires-protect-lightning/


As a side note, I didn't search too hard for it but there was a TV show once interviewing at least one person struck by lightning and investigating it's affects on others or the possibilities of what could happen. There was a guy on there who was struck but the lightning traveled along his skin where rain/sweat was collected and burnt him in the pattern in traveled and they showed some of the damage he suffered from it...noting that external while bad isn't as life threatening as when it goes through your body instead of along it.

God uses lightning strike on truck. It's not very effective...

These blast points...too accurate for Sand People.

Good thing he wasn't traveling 88 miles per hour.

By the power of Greyskull!

fake?

>> ^entr0py:

God uses lightning strike on truck. It's not very effective...


So does that make this a God FAIL?

i call fake, a bolt that close would have no sound delay, and the very quiet reaction from the driver only further confuses the point. i'd be nearly shitting myself or at least saying "ooooo"

however, best comments ever. so many one liners!

I was suspicious about this myself. Yeah the video is FAKE. I downloaded it and went frame by frame, the lightning is out of sync with the rest of the frames from the video... as if it was added in post production. During their "slow motion" it becomes blatently obvious. Outside of even this the video camera would have auto-exposure compensated for the bright flash, and often lightning leaves a trailing flash as it is not usually a single continuous bolt.

Living in Florida I've seen trees/objects down the road or across the damn street struck by lighting and none of them looked remotely like that. The sound is out of sync as well even a close flash has a slight delay along with pre-echo. Christ once sitting in my living room it struck a water pipe outside my appt within 15 feet of me. That shit will make you jump out of your damn chair. Broke the (metal) water pipe as well and created a flood.

Good comments though

>> ^Psychologic:

Where does all that electricity go? Are trucks like that usually grounded?

i'm pretty sure in any lighting strike it would fry any electronics "grounded" to the car's chassis.

some trucks are grounded to the road either by a conductive rubber strip or a long-ish metal chain. mostly to dissipate static electricity that builds up from air rushing over the truck's body but could also help w/ lighting. this is especially true for gasoline tanker trucks.