Originally Posted by
Tundra_Man
My opinion, FWIW, is that lightning is overrated as a risk to the bicycle commuter. Sure a handful of people get hit by lightning every year. Maybe even some of them might be on a bike. But compared to the number of people in the world, the number is staggeringly small.
If I was in a car/bus, what's to say it doesn't have the same risk of being hit by lightning that I do on my bike? Perhaps even more because it's a bigger target? Being in a vehicle hit by lightning can also be lethal, but we don't seem to have the same aversion to being out in an electrical storm if we're in a steel cage. I suspect being isolated from the elements gives us a false sense of security?
I'll play the odds and keep riding. I realize that not everyone is comfortable with that decision. But in the grand scheme of things getting hit by a car because of poor visibility is a much greater risk than lightning. And that's pretty small too.
Big difference between getting hit by lightning on a bike and in a car.
In a car you are surrounded by the metal that transmits the electricity to the ground; on a bike you are
part of that circuit.
FWIW, I heard a news story on the radio the other day that said the safest place in a lightning storm is indoors and the next safest is in a car...