It's long been known that if you're in a lightning storm, a car is a safer place to be than standing outside. Contrary to popular belief, it's not because the tires insulate the car from the ground. A few inches of clearance offered by tires isn't going to stop an electric discharge taking place between the atmosphere and the ground. However, the big metal cage around the occupants offers the path of least resistance to that electrical discharge, guiding it around them. As long as nobody is touching bare metal, they should emerge unscathed as a family in Illinois recently learned. They walked away unscathed from a lightning strike on their Ford Edge, although the car didn't come off so well. We can see exactly what the strike did to the car, and it's not pretty.