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If a nuclear bomb goes off, you shouldn't try to drive away in your car - here's why
It’s something that has been on a lot of people’s minds – what would actually happen in a nuclear war?
Many of us imagine we might jump into our cars and escape somewhere safe – but that’s actually about the worst thing you could do.
Brooke Buddemeier, a radiation expert at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory says that fallout dust travels at hundreds of miles per hour, high in the atmosphere.
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So the idea you could ‘outrun’ the deadly radioactive dust is false, he warns.
Speaking to Science Alert he says, ‘”There was actually a lot of folks who had this notion – and it may be a Hollywood notion – of ‘Oh, jump in the car and try to skedaddle out of town if you see a mushroom cloud.”
There are still nearly 15,000 nuclear weapons in the world – about a tenth of which are armed and ready to fire within minutes.
Buddemeier says that fallout is often carried by high-altitude winds going at 100 miles per hour – and not going in the same direction as winds on the ground.
Buddemeier says, ‘So your ability to know where the fallout’s gonna go, and outrun it, are… Well, it’s very unlikely. What we’re talking about are things like salt- or sand-size particles. It’s the penetrating gamma radiation coming off of those particles that’s the hazard.
‘Modern vehicles are made of glass and very light metals, and they offer almost no protection. You’re just going to sit on a road some place.’
