Fewer people are being killed by lightning strikes due to better ways to get out of its way. In the United States we have learned that we can get out its way by having covers over us that don’t attract the lightning bolts. In the 1940s there was over 400 people a year that were killed by lightning and in the year 2013 there was only 23 killed, the fewest number on record.
We have educated ourselves how to avoid the lightning by staying inside during a storm and learning more about lightning itself.
More people are capturing lightning by their cell phones and making them go viral faster than in the past. It seems to people that these strikes are new, but they have been going on for centuries. We have a tendency to spend more time in our cars and homes during storms so less people are getting hurt or killed.