Will Rubber Tires Protect You From Lightning

Here s where your grandmother is right though your car is a fairly safe place to be in a thunderstorm but for a different reason entirely.

Will rubber tires protect you from lightning.

It goes something like this. Is the claim true. True being in a car will likely protect you. Ironically it s not the rubber tires insulating the car but rather the conductive metal framing which protects you by conducting the electricity around the vehicle and its occupants.

Then the electrical current will pass through the outer metal shell of your vehicle according to nws. The national weather service says of the notion that rubber tires or shoe soles will protect you from lightning strikes. With the news full of terrifying storms and tornado watches on both. By the time a lightning bolt reaches your car it has been traveling for miles through the air.

Most people believe the rubber tires on a car prevent lightning strikes. The air is many orders of magnitude more resistant than a few. Myth 5 a car s rubber tires will protect you from lightning. Yes you ll be safe but it s not because of the rubber tires.

And then get this the electricity goes through the tires and to the ground. So the rubber tires on your car do not protect you from lightning they simply ground your vehicle so that the electricity has a place to exit. What tends to protect you inside of a metal car or rv or other metal box is something called the faraday cage effect which is basically the magnetic shell that forms around the metal body of the vehicle when an electric field contacts it and which bends lightning around the outside of your car or rv not letting it pass through to the inside of. Here s what actually goes down.

Rubber is indeed an electrical insulator but your shoes or bike tires for instance are way too thin to protect you from a lightning strike. Rubber does not protect you from lightning. Rubber soled shoes and rubber tires provide no protection from lightning. Lightning usually hits the highest point of something so the car s antenna or roof will take the strike.

You are absolutely safe inside a car during a lightning strike because a car has rubber tires which provide insulation against electricity. Standing on something insulated or the rubber tires of your car or rv won t protect you from harm if your rv sustains a direct lightning hit. The truth is rubber tires don t prevent lightning strikes in the least bit. But most vehicles are actually safe because the metal roof and sides divert lightning around you the rubber tires have little to do with keeping you safe.