what would happen if lightning was to strike a car while it was cranked or driving down the highway?
401412
As I understand it, the metal takes the hit of the lightening and the key to your safety is to avoid touching any metal attached to the base of the car while the lightening strike is active.\n\nI certainly hope I'll never have any cause to find out whether my understanging is correct!
624019
The tires have nothing to do with it, between the dirt and moisture on the outside of the tires and the metal belting inside the tires, the rubber won't insulate you.  However, since the frame of the car is metal and forms an unbroken 'cage' of sorts around you, most likely the electricity will flow through the metal around you and into the ground.  This assumes that the doors are shut and you don't touch the metal parts of the frame that you can reach from inside the car.  Then again, lightning is unpredictable and often behaves strangely, so almost anything is possible.
33169
IF YOU WERE GOING AT THE SPEED OF A BULLET,YOU WOULD BE RIGHT NEXT TO IT AT SPEED O. THE SAME WITH LIGHT, IF YOU WERE GOING THE SPEED OF LIGHT IN YOUR CAR (LET'S SAY )YOU WOULD SEE THE LIGHT ON,BUT TO SEE THE LIGHT OFF YOU MUST BE GOING FASTER THAN THE SPEED OF LIGHT.SO THEN YOU SEE THE LIGHT ON AT THE SAME SPEED THE CAR IS GOING.
1132815
This is taken from an article I used with my earth science students.\n\nOver 1,000 people get struck by lightning every year in the United States, and over 100 of them die as a result of the strike. Lightning is not something to toy with. \nIf you are caught outside in a storm, always look for appropriate shelter. Do not take any chances -- lightning can use you as a path to the earth just as easily as it can use any other object. Appropriate shelter would be a building or a car. If you do not have anywhere to go, then you should avoid taking shelter under trees. Trees attract lightning. Put your feet as close together as possible and crouch down with your head as low as possible without touching the ground. \n\nNever lay down on the ground. After lightning strikes the ground, there is an electric potential that radiates outward from the point of contact. If your body is in this area, current can flow through you. You never want the current to have the ability to pass through your body. This could cause cardiac arrest, not to mention other organ damage and burns. By making your body as low to the ground as possible and minimizing the amount of your body in contact with the ground, you can lower the possibility of a lightning-related injury. If a strike were to occur near you, the current would have a much more difficult time flowing through your body in this position. \n\nIf you are indoors, stay off the phone. If you must call someone, use a cordless phone or cell phone. If lightning strikes the phone line, the strike will travel to every phone on the line (and potentially to you if you are holding the phone). \n\nStay away from plumbing pipes (bath tub, shower). Lightning has the ability to strike a house or near a house and impart an electrical charge to the metal pipes used for plumbing. This threat is not as great as it used to be, because PVC (polyvinyl chloride) is often used for indoor plumbing these days. If you are not sure what your pipes are made of, wait it out.\n\nA couple of misconceptions:\nRubber tires keep you safe in a car because they do not conduct electricity.\nNope. In strong electric fields, rubber tires actually become more conductive than insulating. The reason you are safe in a car is because the lightning will travel around the surface of the vehicle and then go to ground. This occurs because the vehicle acts like a Faraday cage. Michael Faraday, a British physicist, discovered that a metal cage would shield objects within the cage when a high potential discharge hit the cage. The metal, being a good conductor, would direct the current around the objects and discharge it safely to the ground. This process of shielding is widely used today to protect the electrostatic sensitive integrated circuits in the electronics world. \n\nThe tallest objects in a storm always get struck by lightning.\nIt's true that taller objects are closer to the clouds, but as discussed previously, lightning can strike the ground at a close distance to a tall object. Taller objects may have a higher possibility of a strike, but where lightning is concerned, the strike path is not predictable.
618892
Lighting strike may cause the failure of the electrical system of the plane, or it can cause fire - and the plane will likely crash. Planes are usually avoiding thunderstorms so they won't be struck by lighting.\n\nSee a few occurences here:\nhttp://www.aviation-safety.net/database/dblist.php?Event=WXL
938852
The driver cannot see the lighting of the lights on the road as teh car will be travelling at the same speed of light. The car will be on the same point of the road where the light is falling. Because the car will travel that distance along with light which is about to hit the road. let me explain. Let us assume that car is "c" lights are "l" and the lighting is "r". So their positions will be some thing like this\n     c   lr\nAs lights will be before car.\nNow lights have released the light and the light is hits the ground and at teh same time car reaches that point.\n           cr   lr1\nr1 is the light that is released at that point of instant.\nI had explained a lot and in that effort I had missed the point that this cannot be explained like this. LOL.
512682
No way, you will get fried if your hit by lightening.
548407
Yeah, it does...The truth is, lightning tries to find the shortest distance to ground (The Earth). Although the odds are favorable that lightning won't strike the same place twice, there is nothing in nature to prevent it. It can strike 3 or 4 times in the same spot.
417045
Or did you mean when light hits an object, rather than lightning?\n\nIn this case, it really depends on the composition of the object and the wavelength of the light.  Generally, some of the light is absorbed into the object in the form of energy, and some of it is reflected back.  For example, a white light shone onto a red postbox will absorb every colour within the white light except for the red wavelengths which will reflect and be seen, hence it appearing red.
1123936
the lightning actually starts in the ground from static electricity...I always thought it was odd starting from ground...
108122
http://science.howstuffworks.com/lightning.htm
208468
Your car is a safer place to be in an electrical storm because, if struck, the metal frame of your car will provide the path of least resistance (which is what electricity always takes) to the ground. Your car and all its electrical systems will be fried, but you should be safe (as long as you are not directly touching that metal frame).\n\nAnd as for your rubber tires providing insulation ... think again, because that small amount of rubber will do very little to stop a lightning bolt with somewhere over 10 million volts of power
887907
Actually it is the other way around.  Since light travels faster than sound, you *see* lightning before you *hear* the accompanying thunder.\n\nLight travels at about 186,000 miles per *second*\nSound travels at about 760 miles per *hour*.  This works out to about 1/5 of a mile per second (0.2114... miles per second)\n\nSo if you count the time between when you see the lightning (almost instantaneously) and the time until you hear the lightning, then divide by 5, you can get a rough estimate of how far away to where the lightning is striking.\n\nIf the difference is 25 seconds, it is 5 miles away.  If it is 5 seconds, it is 1 mile away.  If it happens at the same time as the lightning... good luck!
4133
Yes. The car acts as a Faraday cage, so the current goes around the surface and does not harm the occupants.
303634
no the beams of light would bend back over the windshield of the car
1088763
A lot of static electricity in the air can cause "dry lightning".  I assume that is what happened.
598306
nothing-\nthe system of atoms inside your car is stationary relative to the baloon.