An electric smart car caused great turmoil yesterday morning in Nashville, Tennessee, when it went out of control after being struck by a lightning bolt, leaving 8 people injured.
According to report, Mr. Martin Jones was driving the car under the rain, when his car was struck by a 120,000 amperes electrostatic discharge, radically supercharging his small electric vehicle’s engine. The Smart car almost instantly reached the incredible speed of 211 miles per hour (or 340 km/h), leading to violent collisions with 5 other vehicles in less than 30 seconds.
Rosie Albert, a neighbor who witnessed the whole scene, explains that the car could have killed many.
“It was just shocking” says Ms. Denver. “This tiny car was speeding like a Nascar in a residential area. And then… boom! It started crashing through cars, one after the other.”
“All of a sudden, a white light filled the whole car and my whole body went numb”explains Mr. Jones, still shocked by the whole event. “I really tried to break, but my car just went out of control! All I could do was to try to avoid hitting any pedestrians. I have never been so scared in my life!”
His vehicle slightly bumped a first car before literally cutting a second one in half. It continued its rampage by hitting two other cars and violently ramming a minivan carrying four people before it finally stopped.
Despite the popular belief that the rubber in car tires protects the vehicle from being hit by lightning, hundreds of road vehicles are struck every year in America and dozens of people are injured or shocked.
When most cars are struck by lightning, the electrical charge flows around the outside of the vehicle, and the majority of the current flows from the car’s metal cage into the ground below. Smart cars are however manufactured out of ultra-grade fiberglass, carbon fiber, and polyurethane composites instead of metal, which impedes electricity’s ability to flow through the car and carried the current to the engine and the driver.
