Total Motorcycle Community Forums

So I was coming home from work in the most incredible thunderstorm today. I saw fork lightning hit the road not far in front of me. Torrential monsoon rain. Flash and fork lightning. How safe are we on our motorcycles? I know the tires of a car and the cage of a car offer protection, how about bikes?

Actually the tires of the car offer no protection whatsoever. The metal cage around the car is what protects the driver.

Faraday cage
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faraday_cage
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zi4kXgDB ... re=related

So in other words the motorcycle offers zero protection to the rider from lightning

To further add to the already immense danger, a motorcylist is wet as well, totally ensuring electrocution.

Under no circumstances should anyone even ponder about riding in a thunderstorm.

aw gawd. Horrible . That is scary. I had to get home tho. I never realized it was so dangerous.
I stupidly assumed rubber tires offered some protection Sorry to be Ms morbid continuous but have there been cases of motocyclists being hit by lightning??
Yikes I wont be doing that again in a hurry

Hondagirl wrote:Sorry to be Ms morbid continuous but have there been cases of motocyclists being hit by lightning??

Many many many cases! For example if you google "motorcyclist hit by lightning", you will get a gazillion hits.

I was thinking there was someone on this forum that was hit by lightning while on an off ramp.

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=9185&hilit=hit+by+l ... n+off+ramp
Here ya go.

To add to what the others have already said, riding during heavy lightning is a seriously bad idea unless it is an absolutely dire emergency. An inch of rubber isn't going to do Jack dodo against a lightning bolt carrying an untold number of volts and multiple thousands of amps. I've never been hit but I've been less than 100 feet from a lightning strike a few times. When it happens you would be surprised how fast you can actually run.

Tires won't insulate you from anything electrical. Rubber isn't naturally black, the rubber in tires is full of carbon to enhance durability, carbon conducts electricity very well.

Getting hit by lightning on a bike is gonna suck, wet or dry.

Thanks for the links. Just checked them all now. storysunfolding, that Faraday box experiment is incredible. It looks like a glass box ... would that mean an elevator would be safe in an electric storm?? I always imagined it wouldnt be. Also the guys fateful journey/blog fireguzzi linked was really interesting that he survived with exit burns and exactly how he felt after being hit..or in the range anyway

Everything happened very fast yesterday, it was a beautiful hot sunny afternoon when I set off home and the rain was a flashstorm that lasted all of 3 minutes followed by the skies being lit up with lightning. When I saw that huge fork hit the road somewhere about 20 cars in front I headed for the nearest large building which was a shopping Mall. A few minutes after parking the bike and running inside the whole of the electric supply cut out and the entire Mall was plunged into darkness...refridgerators (in the foodcourt) and overhead lighting and cash registers etc. It was suddenly night and everyone screamed.The power back up came on soon after.

After this xp I am wondering what is the best thing to do in an electric storm if you are already on the bike?