Let me point out a few things that we can observe from the event of the accident in your original post of this thread that started this discussion.
First is the fact that that we know there was some kind of current that struck the workers, now lets try to see why?
If lightning did strike the bucket, why didn't it hit the top of the much higher crane boom?
Why didn't the lightning hit the top of the much higher building?
Why did the lightning hit the less grounded workers when there most likely was better grounding paths in close proximity of this bucket including the crane cable(wire rope) that held the bucket, re-bar in the forms they were pouring?
Again with all this grounding in and around this bucket it would seem that these workers would have been the last path the lightning would have taken, now if we go back and apply the theory RF energy and how it propagates and how much variable's can play a significance into what the lightning will strike we can see how difficult it would be to say a simple means of just bonding this bucket would guarantee that these workers would have been protected, and that right there is the problem.
If I was the company that was responsible for providing the protection for these workers and I installed this bond and these workers still got hurt or killed I would have most likely been trying to defend my company in a law suit, and I think this is the point that we are trying to make, when you try to make something safer it can open you and your company up to the liability when it fails.
Here in the states there is an old saying, if you remove snow from a sidewalk and someone falls you can be liable for their injuries, but if you just let the snow build up it is an act of god and you can't be found at fault, yes I know that this should not be this way as we should be protected when we act in good faith to lessen the danger for others, but in the real world this doesn't happen, we live in a very litigation world and people will sue over anything they think they can win, I know some other countries don't allow this but not so here in the US.
For this reason is why we see the warnings that most UL certified companies that do lightning protection installs that these installs are only to reduce the damage caused by lightning and in no way will remove the danger that lightning can still pose nor the damage that it can still do, because there is no perfect solution to stop lightning that can be guaranteed to always work, sure we can lower the the effect like in the Franklin rods, but we can not remove all damage that it can cause simply because just like in this event you posted about, it chose to strike a bucket dangling from a steel cable with many much higher metal points of contact including the building and crane.
I'm all about safety and try to apply as much as I can, but at the same time not open myself up to a law suit in doing so.
