If a transmission line falls on your car, is it safe to touch metal inside the car?

pgardn

I kayak fish and surf fish quite a bit. I have some bull shark jaws from a big shark. The teeth on the top are triangular and sharp on the entire surface. The bottom teeth are just pointed. So when this shark bites, it holds (forks) with the bottom teeth, and "saws" with the top teeth (knifes). It was so apparent how this kid had been bitten when I matched the jaws up with his wounds, which were quite extensive. The shark had turned on its side to bite his calf and sawed and shook a bit and then let him go. Bull sharks lurk in very shallow water in Texas so they make a lot of contact with humans. I had one go after the fish on my stringer I had caught but I slapped at him with my rod tip and he left my fish alone. I then called it a day.

NascentOxygen

The shell of a vehicle is only an approximation to a Faraday shield. A few mm of plastic is next to useless as a barrier to electrocution when dealing with tens of thousands of volts. Vehicle tyres incorporate carbon in sufficient quantity as to make the rubber conductive so it leaks away static buildup (a cause for car sickness in some people). Even if the rubber didn't breakdown and become conductive, tens of kV across it would cause sufficient I²R heating to melt the tyre. Tyres incorporate steel wire and reinforcing, so really don't present many cm of insulation at the best of times.

You'll find that at high transmission voltages, soil is not an insulator; fallen lines strike sparks as they sweep over bare ground.

pgardn

Especially if its wet.

And high winds, lightning and rain... they often accompany each other.

DragonPetter

I hope this is a joke. No one should be making bets on safety when there are many unknown variables, no matter how informed someone is. That would be the dunning-kreuger effect in the worst light.

DaleSpam

If a transmission line falls on a car in the middle of a forest with noone around to see, does it make a spark?