A crash brings power lines down onto your vehicle. What should you and your passengers do?
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A.
Step out slowly with one hand on the vehicle
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B.
Push the wires off with a dry stick and exit
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C.
Get out from the door farthest from the wires
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D.
Remain in the vehicle until help arrives Correct
The answer is "Remain in the vehicle until help arrives"
Stay in the vehicle until help arrives; any step onto the ground while you're touching the car completes the circuit through your body. The one exception is fire: if fire is an immediate danger, jump clear without letting your body touch the vehicle and the ground at the same time, then hop or shuffle 50 feet away. Choice A is the trap for a driver who steadies themselves on the fender while stepping down out of habit, treating the "do not touch vehicle and ground together" rule as advice to be careful rather than the exact contact it forbids.
The traps in the wrong answers
A. Step out slowly with one hand on the vehicle
Touching the car while standing on the ground puts you directly in the current path, which is the exact contact the manual forbids. This answer reads 'slowly' and 'one hand on the car' as safe-exit techniques carried over from crash or car-fire drills, when neither maneuver has anything to do with a live electrical circuit.
B. Push the wires off with a dry stick and exit
The manual does not permit handling downed lines; that work belongs to emergency crews. This answer borrows the rule of thumb that dry wood does not conduct electricity, when a live line's voltage arcs through most objects a driver could grab.
C. Get out from the door farthest from the wires
Any step onto the ground while the car is energized completes the circuit through your body, which is why the manual keeps you inside unless fire forces an exit. This answer applies the standard get-out-of-a-wrecked-car reflex and treats a downed line like any other post-crash hazard, missing that electricity reverses the usual advice to leave the vehicle.
This question tests your knowledge of Emergencies in Illinois. Source: Illinois Rules of the Road, "Electricity," p.88..
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