What's more dangerous, lightning or motorcycle?
 

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.

So what's your point? That we shouldn't ride motorcycles???

You can find statistics for anything...

Well said. Too many cries of lightning issues for the actual amount of damage done. Good for spike and cable installers though.

It is more dangerous to ride lightening than to ride a motorcycle.
What did I win?

I see many riders in FL not wearing a helmet. I've been an owner and rider of motorcycles for almost 50 years. Always would wear a helmet. But I like that it is a choice here in FL. Those that don't wear a helmet I call organ donors.

What's more dangerous , lightning or a motorcycle?

The more dangerous is a lightning fast mortorcycle Zooooooooooooooom

I'll take my chances on a motorcycle. At least with a motorcycle, you have a little control over the event happening. We've had a motorcycle almost the entire 45 years we've been together. My theory is that my husband doesn't want to die any more than I do, so he'll be careful. So far so good, but we have moved on to a TriGlide. Three wheels are safer than two.

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.

I think the main thrust of OP is to question whether or not lightning rods work. It is a good question because there really hasn't been a lot of research on it. The current standard of thought by the experts seems to be that having lightning rods may improve your chances of having your house survive a strike without damage, but is no guarantee. Current U.S. lightning protection standards are embodied in a document published by the National Fire Protection Association known as NFPA 780. First issued in 1904 and updated periodically since, NFPA 780 codifies the traditional lightning rod installation, in which sharpened metal "air terminals" known as Franklin rods are connected to an earth ground by means of heavy conductors. A lightning bolt strikes a Franklin rod and is carried harmlessly to earth by the grounding apparatus, sparing lives and property. Though technically voluntary, NFPA 780 has been adopted by many local jurisdictions and government agencies and is the de facto national code. As stated by OP, the lightning can hit anywhere on your house. But if it does hit the highest point of your house that is protected by properly installed rods, then the current will pass through the rod and wire and into the ground.

Makes No Sense
 

It makes absolutely zero sense for anyone to try to sell against the use of lightning rods. It is cheap insurance if it does nothing else but produce a sense of peace of mind for the insured. Having this additional level of security has NO DOWNSIDE. Not having it has NO UPSIDE. If you consider saving $1500 (one time) an upside, then try to remind yourself that is YOUR upside, not your neighbors who just might take your advice.

It wasn't the point to tell people what they should or shouldn't do. I found it interesting and thought I would share it.

About lightning protection equipment: I had an electrician install surge protectors in my electric box last year. Step one: They frighten you by telling you that all of your appliances can be destroyed by lightning. Step two: They tell you, after they start the job, that there's no guarantee it will work in the case of a massive strike.

The sales pitch came after I called him for another job that was unrelated to the surge protectors.

I have lived full time in central Florida for about 45 years and in all that time I have never had any lightning protection. What did I lose? One old microwave oven.

Or riding a motorcycle in a thunderstorm.

While texting.

Damn right.

If my question had been asked previously, I apologize in advance.

Do lightning rods also serve as a lightning attractor? In other words, if two identical homes were next to one another (same height, etc.) and one had lightning rods, would there be any increased propensity for the "protected" home to be struck?

You win a coupon for a free chicken sandwich at Chick-Fil-A. Enjoy!

Here's a question: If it's thundering outside and you have a choice to ride your motorcycle or walk to the store, which should you do. You could get to the store faster with your motorcycle and avoid some of the lightning. Or you could walk: You'd be exposed to more lightning but you wouldn't have the risk of riding a motorcycle, especially if it starts raining and the streets are slippery.

I agree about the control thing; you have a right to be proud of 45 years and still alive to talk about it. Thumbs up for TriGlide.

:pray:

I played golf with a guy today that said his boss lives next to the home that got hit by lightning last Saturday and burned...they have kissing lanais, according to my friend. You, like I, will have to judge if the account is factual or not.

At any rate, he said that all of the homes in that area have lightning rods installed, so this house that was hit did have lightning rods on it. However, lightning did not hit the rods...

Kinda makes you wonder...

On page C1 of todays Daily Sun there is a Q&A on lightning rods. It states "lightning rods won't prevent a lightning strike, but "might" intercept a strike and and give the electricity a conductive path. The don't guarantee a home won't catch fire." So consider that along with the fact that in the two recent storms 1 house of 50,000 was damaged in each storm and form your own conclusions if you want to spend the money to, as someone else has stated, "to produce of sense of piece of mind" whatever that is.

On Sunday?

I would never ride my motorcycle when it rains because cleaning the chrome is a chore! :wave::wave:

I thought Lightning Strikes were exclusive to The Villages
 

After reading lots of the lightning related posts on TOTV, I was being slowly brainwashed to think that The Villages somehow had an exclusive over this natural hazard along with Sinkholes and Alligators. Then I ran across this report on the internet. What a shock! We share the risk and the potential tragedy with others not locked into the bubble. You can read about this sad incident here:Lightning strikes in Colorado park kill 2 people in 2 days | Fox 59 News – fox59.com

My source was, "The Handy Science Answer Book" compiled by the Science and Technology Department of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburg. (580 Pages)
It's an older book (copyright 1997) that I bought for $1.00 at the library.

Yes, it can get complicated. I presented the information exactly as it appeared in my book, no more and no less. It consisted of two sentences, one for lightning and one for motorcycles. There was no explanation of why they chose to put those two facts together. And they didn't give any explanation of how they made the calculations. Therefore, if our sources are not in agreement, I have no idea why.

Looks like you are correct about motorcycles being more dangerous than lightning.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...lightnig-1.jpg

The above is pure fiction, dreamt up in my bored and confused mind.

You never know what reasons a person might come up with so it would be wise not to claim that it makes zero sense. I had a neighbor who bought into everything that came along. She had the extra Medicare insurance that cost $78.00 per month. She bought an expensive (outdoor unit) water softener/filter. And she had her house washed twice a year among many other services. By sometime around her late seventies, she just used up all of her retirement savings. She wouldn't have had $1500. to spend on lightning protection. I knew a couple others who ran out of money and had to get a reverse mortgage. So that's one reason - lack of money.

I can well afford to get lightning protection but I'm not sure I want workers in my attic and up on my roof walking around drilling holes and what not. I have hired all kinds of work done before moving to the Villages and I have hired work done in the Villages. I even hired a commercial contractor to build a store for me. So this is nothing new to me. And I can tell you it's not uncommon for workers to fix one thing and damage another in the process.

Having lived in central Florida for about 45 years, I know the risk of having my house hit is very low. Not just for myself but I've never had a neighbor, friend, co-worker or relative who was hit by lightning.

This is not selling against lightning protection, this is an explanation of why I personally don't want to bother with it.

There was a good article about this yesterday in the Daily Sun. They didn't advise getting "whole house" protection. They simply advised that people might want to look into it and then make up their own mind. It's not a must do item from what I gathered. And as you drive around the Villages look to see how many houses have those little rods sticking up. I don't believe I have ever seen one.

lol

I used to work at a highly ranked golf course designed by a famous course architect. I noticed that many of the trees had lightning rods at their tops. I asked about it, and discovered that all the trees with the rods on them were considered features of the hole. In other words, they influenced the way a golfer chose to play the hole. We lost a small number of trees to lightning while I was there, but never lost a featured tree. This could be coincidence as far as I know...just found it interesting.

And he could have been choking on a hotdog which caused him to crash his motorcycle.....;)

Thanks for the information. That's exactly what I suspected could happen. Lightning has "a mind of its own." It will strike wherever it wants to. And no matter how big the wiring is, even if it hits the rods, it won't necessarily be able to handle the high voltage which can go up as high as 100 million volts.

Does Dagwood know about this? ;)

The home that was destroyed in Pinellas last month DID NOT have a lightning protection system. None of the nine homes destroyed by lightning in the last 10 years had lightning protection nor did the home that was destroyed in the Fairways subdivision about 600 ft outside The Villages. We have heard from 12 homeowners with lightning protection who told us they took a direct hit without damage. This is consistant with the history and research over the last 262 years.

How do those 12 homeowners with lightning protection know they took a direct hit? With 100 million volts hitting that ground wire, I'm sure it would melt the wire as well as singe the surrounding area. That's damage, right?

I've seen large oak trees that have been hit and it splits them right down the middle with a large visible black singe.

That's quiet possible, but you're telling me that research on this topic goes all the way back to the year 1752 ???

Actually, destroyed and just being struck are two very different things. A firefighter friends tells me that most house fires, caused by lightning, are small, but if gone unnoticed, develop into large fires; thereby, destroying the home. In addition, I believe the home destroyed in Pinellas was unoccupied at the time of the strike and the fire was out of control, before it was noticed by neighbors.

At any rate, installing lightning protection is a risk based decision...

Research and history has demonstrated that Lightning Protection Systems (LPS), commonly called lightning rods, do work if they are designed, installed, and maintained according to the national standard on lightning published by the National Fire Protection Association in NFPA-780, Standard for the Installation of Lightning Protection Systems. 2014 edition. Studies have shown that when they don’t work as designed it is due to a lack of maintenance or neglect over time. LPS have no moving parts and only three components; air terminals, down conductors, and driven ground rods – usually 3 or 4 of 8 ft in length. Homeowners with LPS should have the installer check them out every 3 to 5 years but immediately if you have added on (including a pool cage), re-roofed, had extensive landscaping around the foundation, or if you believe that you took a lightning strike.

If you want to learn why they work you should go to the NFPA website and bring up NFPA-780 that is a read only format. Then go to page 57, Principles of Lightning Protection that addresses research models, the positioning of air terminal, the physics of lightning attachment, and the cone of protection.

Here are other references:
• The Art and Science of Lightning Protection by University of Florida professor Dr. Martin Uman, that can be found in The Villages Library.
• The Basis of Conventional Lightning Protection Technology by the federal interagency user group.
• The Report of the Committee on Atmospheric and Space Electricity of the American Geophysical Union of the Scientific Basis for Traditional Lightning Protection Systems, chaired by Dr. Vladimir Rakov of the University of Florida.
• American Metrological Society also published a position paper on LPS that can found on line

Based on what you said above, wouldn't it be reasonable to expect that a reliable company be willing to give a written guarantee that there will be no fire or damage from lightning? Talk is cheap but will they back up what they say?

Good point........How much wiring was in a house in 1752 to attract lightning???

In one case the homeowner, a retired electrical engineer who had the foresight to install a LPS, was in his living room looking out through his pool cage during a thunderstorm. Lightning struck one of the points on the pool cage and jumped to another point and then went to ground as designed without any damage. In another case the event was reported by a retired meteorologist who took a direct strike and another case was a retired firefighter, fortunately both also had the foresight to install a LPS to NFPA-780 by a UL listed installer. I highly recommend that you read Dr. Martin Uman’s book, The Art and Science of Lightning Protection and especially read the first paragraph of the preface.

The studies that I have reviewed show that the major reason for failure is simple neglect and failure to follow the maintance criteria in NFPA-780. They don’t take much maintenance as they have no moving parts. Are there are any manmade products that are 100% reliable – never have a failure? Every transportation mode has a failure rate as does your appliances, computers and other electronics. Are automatic external deliberators (AED) 100% guaranteed when they are called on in a life & death situation? Yet we had one fail last summer during a Villages softball game. My point is that anything manmade can fail but you have to agree that they all work a very high percentage of the time well into to the upper ninety percent range including LPS.

When a stroke leader begins its millisecond journey down to earth from the thunder cloud it is seeking the least resistance path to ground. It makes no difference if a structure has electricity or not the strike may cause a fire in combustible materials. In 1752 Benjamin Franklin did his famous kite experiment that led to the birth of lightning rods. Lightning was a problem for the colonists and the Europeans as well. Lightning rods were first installed on buildings in Philadelphia in the summer of 1752, and would soon be adopted in some European counties as well. Franklin reported years later that his own house was struck and saved by his own invention.