Quote:
Originally Posted by Villages PL
The odds against being struck by lightning are 606,944 to one.
The odds against being killed on a motorcycle are 1,250 to one.
I didn't make this up, this is the way I found this information.
Note: There was nearly a full page of warnings about lightning in the Daily Sun but no warnings about motorcycle riding.
Good luck to those who seek to protect their homes with lightning rods etc.: A lightning strike discharges from 10 to 100 million volts of electricity and the air temperature around lightning is about 6 times hotter than the surface of the sun. Therefore, since lightning rods don't attract lightning, a massive lightning strike can hit your house anywhere it chooses and still cause a fire.
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I am not a fan of donor-cycles but I question the data you have presented. Would you please link your source? Wikipedia shows about 4500 - 5000 deaths a year on motorcycles. It does not give a denominator of the number of people who ride motorcycles. Is your figure 1/1250 riders die or is it 1/1250 Americans die? Per year or per lifetime? Everyone is exposed to the risk of lightning, some more than others, but not everyone is exposed to the risk of death on a motorcycle.
NWS Lightning Safety: Understanding Lightning Introduction gives odds using averages for the last ten years, and gives the odds of being personally struck by lightning as 1/12000 over a lifetime of 80 years (struck not killed) Odds of being affected by a lightning strike in your life 1/1200 as 10 people are affected by an average event. Keep in mind that lightning events are not evenly distributed over the population. Higher risk in Florida obviously. One would also need to have data such as hours at risk to death while riding a motorcycle vs hours at risk while outdoors with an electrical storm in the vicinity. It all gets very complicated. I do agree, no matter how you do the calculation, motorcycle riding is much more dangerous than being out in a thunderstorm.