[WildKat]

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/06/22/motorcycle.lightning.ap/index.html

Wow thats unreal !

It's so depressing seeing and reading all this news of riders going down and being killed. but in a circumstance like this, completely unforseen no matter how your riding... ugh !

RIP fellow rider !!!

[BarMatt80]

just saw the fallen kat on tv and ran upstairs to see about it, hope it was no one on here. craziness neer thought of lighting taking a rider out. RIP

[FrankTheTank]

Cars protecting from Lightning

Wow, that is quite a tragedy.

...

Someone posted earlier on a duplicate thread believing that a car protects you from lightning because it sits on rubber tires. This is not true.

Although the rubber tires do provide considerable insulation, it is insuficient to protect someone from the massive electrical energy of a lightning strike.

Cars protect you from lightning because you are enclosed in a conductive surface. The body of the car acts as what is called a Faraday Cage. According to Gauss's Law, the electrical charge would travel around the outside of the car to the ground.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faraday_cage

On a motorcycle we are more or less exposed to lightning. Like CP says, it is a situation we should avoid.

[TurboMike]

Its a Kat for sure. Here is the pic:


Here is the story with links to video and more pics:

http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/9407981/detail.html

[The CyberPoet]

Its a Kat for sure.

(totally tongue in cheek): Well, we know where to find another Kat cheap -- just don't expect the gauges, CDi, coils, etc to work any more. Between that and the fact that someone died on it (cursed bike!), ought to be able to buy it for a song and a prayer...

Man that sucks... What a horrible way to go -- electrocution from above on a Kat. Doesn't having to ride in crap weather suck enough? And he didn't even have aftermarket bare-metal pegs (he had that fat layer of rubber under his shoes)...

Saddened...
=-= The CyberPoet

[SweetLou]

That is just scary and sad.

Rest In Peice fellow Rider

[POP944]

What Frank the Tank said. . . The rubber tire thing is a myth. If lightning can travel through several tens of thousands of feet of open atmosphere, a couple of inches of rubber is nothin'. Back in my airplane flying days I actually saw an aircraft that'd been hit on the wing - bored a hole right through the sheet metal of the wing, the fuel tank, fuel tank bladder (top and bottom) and out the bottom of the fuselage a few feet aft of the spar. It had travelled through the fuel, using it as a conducting medium (caused a fuel leak, obviously) and blew part of the tail off. Fortunately the pilot was still close to the airport (he'd just departed about 5 minutes earlier) and was able to get it back. I think he was more "puckerized" after he saw the damage to the aircraft safely on the ground than while he was in the air (in situations like that, training/instinct take over and you pretty much just do what has to be done - no time to get scared).

Lightning is crazy stuff and yes, it'll go wherever it damn well pleases - through metal, rubber, Jet-A fuel (apparently), whatever. Although the "Faraday cage" effect is pretty well documented and I've seen demonstrations of this with a large Van de Graff generator. Even in the incident with the airplane, the pilot was fine. The avionics got a bit messed up though.

[alriclam]

Hey guys,

Its been a while since I've hit this board, since I finished school and sold the Kat, but when I saw this story and saw it was a kat, I had to stop in and see if you guys knew.

RIP fellow rider, hope all of you are still riding safe and happy!

[FloridaKat]

Its a Kat for sure.

What a horrible way to go -- electrocution from above on a Kat.
=-= The CyberPoet

Has this been confirmed?

From the CNN link posted previously....

"A coroner's investigation was under way to determine whether the lightning bolt, the collision or something else caused his death, Read said.

The lightning blasted a 4-inch-deep hole in the highway and sent chunks of asphalt hurtling across the highway."

[Zman7928]

man that is bad Ill think twice about riding in the rain
RIP

[The CyberPoet]

Has this been confirmed?

I haven't read a police report or corner's report and won't be... I'm just going on the basis that even if secondary injuries caused his death, the lightening still caused the primary injuries that forced loss of control. Look at the bike -- doesn't appear that a crash actually killed him.

Saddened...
=-= The CyberPoet

[macgyver]

They did say that his bike slid 150 yards which meant that he must have been moving at a good clip. Unfortunetly not being able to see the other side of the bike its hard to tell what kind of impact he had although I guess it's always possible he could have broke his kneck in the impact or many other factors. Also does anyone think that if the lighting struck him and then went into the ground that it might not have made such a big hole in the asphalt as most of the lightnings energy was absorbed in the mans body. I just think it seems like the lightning hit the ground nearby him causing him to loose control. I don't mean this in any kind of cruel or sick way but I am pretty interested to hear the coroners final conclusion as to what killed him.

[jasonrun]

No, his body would not absorb any significant portion of the energy. Electricity only has an effect when it flows. If the energy didn't flow out of him then that means his body wouldn't have had a current going through it and he wouldn't have been hurt. Your body stopping lightning from going to ground would be as likely as a tissue stopping a bullet.

[jasonrun]

Another way of putting it would be that if his body actually did absorb the energy contained within lightning; he would have exploded. The real cause of death may have actually been cardiac arrest which was caused by the lightning completely taking over his nervous system. Those crash carts that they use to jump start your heart could actually cause your heart to stop if it was already functioning correctly.

[The CyberPoet]

Note the first story link now has video story footage:

Late New Story - Motorcyclist Hit by Lightening (WMV).

Noon News Story - Motorcyclist Hit by Lightening (WMV)

=-= The CyberPoet