Public lightning protection behavior in Central Europe — Mission accomplished?

The paper gives a short overview on evaluation of lightning protection information of the general population in Central Europe. Survey work took place in the projects COST P-18 and REBLAUS. Whereas the general level of lightning knowledge seems to be high in the Austrian and Bavarian (southern Germany) questionnaire surveys, free reports show weak points, and a mere knowledge test is no valid predictor for behavior in reality. As the probability for the general population to encounter a critical situation is low, behavior trainings should be focused on high-risk groups like alpine workers, peasants, mountaineers or water sports participants.