I took a ride home from work today. Waited an hour or so for the lightning storm to blow over, and it was still going strong. Torrential rain as well. Would you ride in these conditions?

https://www.crh.noaa.gov/pub/ltg/NOAA...ety_biking.htm

I guess that I wont anymore. Used to live in Gainesville and there is a lot of lightning.

If you want to risk your life, do. If not, don't.

I have done, I try not to but sometimes you have no choice but to brave the conditions.

If I was riding my bike in a storm and a person in the “Lightning Desperation Position” I would likely injure myself as I fell off the bike in a moment of absolute hysteria.

Talk about paranoia, I would like to see some objective statistics on deaths by lightning strikes. I think we have more to worry about with cars than lightning.

That link is scary. I'd like to know the statistics. I think you have to draw a line between what would be the safest course of action and what is practical in real life. If I lived my life by the ultimate standards for safety I'd probably never leave the house. I'd have to redesign the house, too.

That said, I'm glad I took the ride yesterday. Just moving the bike in and out of the car I got soaked. There were 3-4" of rain in front of the house, and the lightning was close and frequent!

Lightning striking humans is very rare and when it does happen people are usually in very exposed areas with virtually nothing around them or standing under trees.

Be reasonable when riding in lightning -- If you have to ride on high exposed ridges riding is probably a bad idea. Similarly riding across the wide open prairie could be a bad idea. For most of us riding on city or suburban streets or bike trails there are probably much better lightning targets Probably the biggest danger for most of us in a thunderstorm is not the lightning but high winds bringing down trees and/or power lines. And of course drivers driving too fast for conditions who can't see riders in heavy rain.

I've had lightning strike about 100 feet away when I was outside on a backpacking trip. After that experience, I recommend finding cover during lightning storms. Most such storms normally aren't in an area for more than 5 or 10 minutes, so waiting it out in a store / under a bridge / whatever shouldn't be too disruptive. Basically, if lighting is striking within a mile or two & getting closer, its time to seek shelter. For me, that means if there's less than 10 seconds between the flash and the boom, I don't want to be exposed.

About 100 people in the US are killed each year from lightning. It's probably not your worst risk in commuting, but it's well worth taking a few precautions and riding out the storm in a safe place if possible.

I was driving along when a bolt of lightning caused a tree to explode about 25-50 ft away. It literally sounded like a bomb went off. I almost crapped my pants. I was so close my car got showered with splinters from the tree. It's not something I take lightly.

I got caught in a lightning storm on a commute a few years back. The sky was slightly overcast when I left my apartment, then a light rain started by the time I was a quarter of the way to work. By the time I reached the halfway point I was in a torrential downpour and the lightning and thunder were simultaneous. The lightning flashes were blinding and I could feel all the hair stand up on my body each time. The only place I could have taken cover was under a tree, and I decided that was a worse option than just riding as fast as possible. I have to say I was truly scared the whole last half of the ride.

I've also witnessed two trees getting blown to bits by lightning strikes. Sure the chances of being hit by lightning are slim, but I don't risk it if I don't have too. I am also amazed by the pedestrians I have seen carrying umbrellas in thunder/lightning storms. I would rather get soaked than carry a metal rod during such a storm.

Don't worry. A work colleague, back in about '70 was struck while riding home, spent the night in hospital and went home in the morning

His name was Alan Crisp

It is funny to read American’s really worry about getting hit by lightening, when I bet you have a much higher chance of getting hit by a stray bullet in the good old U.S. of A., never mind the three to four ton SUVs. Why is there a thread on lighting strikes but not on cycling with bullet wounds, or though a drug related shoot-out? It might actually be more useful to people in war torn developing nations and those living outside of gated communities in the U.S.

I presume if Hollywood movies featured their version of Finnish culture, I could be as knowlegeable about cycling in Finland as K71021 is about cycling in the US.

The part I liked best was:
Yeah, because no one has ever assumed that position except the paranoid freak who wrote that article. Come on, how rediculous is that? I figure if I ever get hit by a direct bolt of lightning, A) I won't care because I'll be dead and B) it is Somebody Up There's way of saying they didn't like something I did.

I guess I'd worry about it if I biked in wide open areas or something, but everywhere around me there are tall trees, buildings, power lines, or whatever. I'd have to look long and hard to find a place where I'm even close to being the tallest thing around.

Speaking of which, yesterday I rode home in a thunderstorm. It came up fast after I was about a half mile from work. The rain was awesome, it felt almost like hail it was hitting so hard. There was lightning I could see hitting the ground but it was out on the horizon, never came close to me. I just turned on my lights and rode the rest of the way home with a huge grin on my face. I dunno what it is about riding in the rain but it is just too much fun.

Yeah talk about an extreme stereotype. I've lived in the US for... (cuts his leg off and counts the rings) 27 years now and have never seen a gun fired in real life. The only gunshots I've heard have been from legitimate target ranges (I have a friend who lives near a military base). I've known people who have owned guns but they've always kept them locked up etc.

According to a published research paper by Miller M, Azrael D, Hemenway D. at your National Library of Medicine, between 1979 and 1997, "...almost 30,000 people died from unintentional firearm injuries, half of whom were under 25 years of age..." Let see, I found that on average ninety people die a year from lighting in the U.S., but let’s say it is one hundred that has been cited above. And let’s reduce the guys from Harvard University number to 29,000 since they say it is "almost 30,000". So 29,000 deaths/19 years = 1526.32 unintentional firearm related deaths per annum. Hmm, fifteen times higher. Is it Hollywood or statistics? You can decide for yourself.

Interesting side point, according to a paper by John Lott et al. unintentional firearm deaths are significantly more probable in rural areas than in urban areas. Now that is something I would have never learned from Boy’z in the Hood.

Sorry, if I have pissed some people off. I actually like a lot about the United States and Americans. And yes I have been to the U.S.A. on at least a dozen occasions, so I am not completely ignorant—just partially. I simple feel that the lightning thing is stupid and made a dumb mistake of bring up the politically loaded firearm issue as a comparison. My point was to compare it to more probable concern. It could have been worse; at least I didn't compare it to gay marriage. Which is an issue I have no personal opinion on, I just know that some people have rather strong thoughts on that topic too.

if you intend to compare death rates you ought to find some way to normalize them relative to exposure. lightning can strike virtually anywhere, regardless of whether there are people around; when a firearm discharges, however, there is always a person there. if you wander into an electrical storm, your chances of getting struck by lightning increase significantly. so it makes sense to consider the risk, when such storms arise.

my son took this picture of me on a cliff in mesa verde a few years ago; it was the closest i have ever come to being struck by lightning.



needless to say, we got the heck away from that ridge.

I don’t see what is wrong with that picture. A decade ago I actually bought stuff to make my hair look similar to that, when I had hair that is.

I got caught in a big storm earlier this week and while my first inclination was to ride through it, once the lightening started coming down close I stopped under an expressway underpass, sat on the curb, and ate a cliff bar until the worst of the storm had passed.

Yep, I bet that I got caught in the same storm. Wettest July on record here in Georgia. My co-workers have taken to taunting me everyday about 4:00pm as the thunder and rain rolls in and I'm getting ready to ride home.

Yes, people don't often get struck by lightening but I still try to avoid it whenever possible. My brother's second-floor room got hit a couple of years ago while he was sleeping. It looked like someone dropped a grenade at the foot of his bed. All the electronics in the room were destroyed, the window sill was burnt to a crisp, and all the wall nails were pulled out of the studs about an inch or so by the magnetic force of the electricity. Scared the pants off of everyone in the house.

Ride the Lightning was an excellent album.

Oh wait, ride IN lightning. Never done it, but probably would, since my commute takes me between tall building and such. Wouldn't the lightning hit those things first?

To be honest Cicadashell, I do think that using the unintentional (see DoJ link below) firearm related deaths does decrease the random nature of the events and make them significantly less comparable to lighting strikes. They only represents 3-4 percent of firearm death and I am sure that they are more random than Homicides or Suicides. I do not really get the point of your argument about randomness and then talking about people being around. Depending on you definition of “around” we are almost always around other people; at least like to be. Could you elaborate a bit on your argument?

As you can see from the Department of Justice figures, unintentional deaths, which is what I was talking about do not include Suicides and Homicides. So I would interperet that to mean more random events, like if a child accidently shoots the person that lives upstairs through the floor because he/she was playing with dad’s rifle. Would you interpret the word in some other way?

I am surprised and happy to see the downward trend in firearm related deaths from 1991 to 2001. I wonder what has happened since then?

https://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/glance/tables/frmdth.htm

I didn't read the web sight carefully concerning the Lightning Desperation Position, but I do find myself wondering how they came up with it...

I can see it now, on some college campus in Florida all of the volunteers have their position defined for them. Each sheet has some combination of: crouching, standing, feet together, feet apart, hands over ears, hands over hearts, hands waving wildly over head, eyes open, eyes closed...

Then of course the control group just standing around without directions. ;-)

Wait out the storm. Isn't one of the reasons we ride bikes, that we are not in a hurry?

Another point worth making is that lightning storms are probably more common throughout the US than they are in Finland. In that country I suspect one is more likely to be gored by a reindeer than struck by lightning.