Comment by arethuza

Shorts in a car can generate an awful lot of heat and smoke - within the confined space of a car this can be pretty alarming.

I've been in a passenger in a car that had a short in the facia while driving - the car immediately filled with dense choking smoke and we nearly crashed. Scary stuff. This wasn't recently though - I hope the standards for in-car wiring have improved a lot over the years!