I get a shock everytime I get out of Truck?

[Mbrooks420]

They sell straps that hang under the car and drag on the ground. They are about an inch wide, you've prob. seen them. They are supposed to stop you from getting shocked, but I've never had them.

 

[gard_mc]

Get a can of the static spray for laundry and shoot some on your seats, that should take care of it until the weather isn't so dry.

BTW -- I used to work for a offshore oil company, we had a man using a Nextel Direct Connect phone, when it chirped (or whatever they do) it ignited some natural gas he was working around and he got burned. I never believed the phones could do that until I saw the results!

 

[jasonb]

Originally posted by ld50
-So do you mean if your feet touch the ground before you touch the metal of the truck then you get shocked?

I`m trying to figure out when the shock exactly occurs and I can`t recall if it is before or after my feet touch ground.

for me.. it's after i step out. when i grab the door to shut it... that's when i get the shock. i think its from sliding across the cloth seat to exit gives me the electrical charge. i wish i could harness a lot of it and shoot it at stuff..

 

[dogfriend]

Originally posted by lonestar

how does rubber generate electricity?

Actually, it isn't necessarily the tires generating the static electricity (although they can) its the difference in how the tires dissipate (conduct) the static charge back to ground. Some tires will dissipate the charge quickly, others not as fast. If they dissipate slowly or not at all, then you are more likely to get zapped when you get out because you will dissipate the charge.

 

[Mbrooks420]

how does rubber generate electricity?

You can make static with a balloon.....

 

[andypinto]

I saw (I don't remember where) a thing called "static tail".

Is a rubber strip with a wire inside along, designed to touch the ground when is in vertical position.

The theory is that attaching this thing to the rear part of the car with a metal hardware, when the car stops the wire touch the ground an dissipate the static electricity generated during the ride.

Sounds reasonable, but what happen if you are hit by a lightning with one of those thing attached to your car?

I believe that a car is a safe place during a thunderstorm because the tires isolates the chassis from the ground, so the lightning don't get a route to the ground trough the car. That safety dissapears if the chassis is connected to the ground.

So the safest way to get out of that annoying shocks is descent form the vehicle touching the ground at the same time that your hand grabs a metallic part of the car

 

[RiverRat]

I believe you would want the vehicle to have a good path to ground if it were to be hit by a lightning bolt. Kind of like how houses have ground rods.

Once I saw a guy at a gas station start the pump and the "automatic fill" thing on the gas nozzle was engaged! The guy didn't notice this and when he started the machine he sprayed someone standing next to him with gas as he turned to put the nozzle in his tank. Good thing there wasn't any static electricty then

No, I didn't have enough time to warn him.

 

['96explorereddiebauer]

Originally posted by RiverRat
Once I saw a guy at a gas station start the pump and the "automatic fill" thing on the gas nozzle was engaged! The guy didn't notice this and when he started the machine he sprayed someone standing next to him with gas as he turned to put the nozzle in his tank. Good thing there wasn't any static electricty then

No, I didn't have enough time to warn him.

I witnessed something like that before too!! It was 7/11/94 when my dad took delivery of our new van. The salesman took us to the gas station since the van was running low on fuel. We got there, he got off the car, took the nozzle out, engaged the thingy, then gas started spraying. It sprayed to the guy at the pump beside us. The salesman shrugged it off and continued pumping gas.

 

[caltman]

The tires aren't the savior in a lightning strike. It is the body of the vehicle that diverts the electrical charge around you. You still have the water running down from the vehicle over the tires most times to conduct the bolt. Saw that on the Discovery Channel not to long ago. they had some guy running around in a birdcage like suit pulling charge from between two large Tesla coils. The suit allowed the electricity to move around him while not going through him at any point. Dud just walks around with about 50,000 volts arcing through him between the two coils.

I get the shocks all the time when it is cold and dry. It is the fabric. It is especially bad when I am wearing my Polartec Fleece jacket. I have had some shocks that make the fingertips tingle and sometimes a good visible arc right before I touch the door.

 

[Abraxsis]

OK Time to dispell some beliefs/And give some people an "I told you so" attitude

OK

One: Lightening will not hit a moving car, except in like 1:10000000000000000 chances. Nor will it hit a parked car UNLESS the ground directly below the car is preparing for a strike, even then the srike will only glance off the vehicle. This is because the car itself is grounded. Lightening doesnt come from the sky alone, as is the belief of most. You have to a have a huge positive charge in the sky and a huge negative charge in the ground for the strike to happen. So in essence the "spark" actually meets somewhere between the sky and the ground. Now there are is an exception to the rule though, when lighting strikes people, places, etc the charge in the ground below them is what is being discharged. And seeing lightening will always stikes the tallest thing, that (the person) is the closest route to the ground. Which is why they tell you not to stand in an open feild, or under a tree during a storm. The safest place, if there isnt any cover, is in the deepest ditch you can find. Lightening rarely if ever strikes in ditches.

Two: Tires dont "generate" electricity per se, they do however allow for the passing of negative ions from the ground to the chassis. BUT this only accounts for a small portion of the electrostatic build up in a car. The majority comes from the wind that passes over the car as you drive. Ergo when you touch the car some of the built up positive ions in your body escape when you touch the negatively charge door frame. This also explains why the shock seems worse in the winter and spring when the air dry.

And on the gas/static shock fires, those are totally true and occur more often than you might think. I think they should replace the metal pump heads with carbon fiber. Its stronger, lighter, and lasts a heck of a lot long. Just a thought.


I was an electrical engineer major before I was a Psy. major.