And herein lies the problems. While it makes sense to me that all small electronics, cars, etc would die... and that people could be fried by this giant EMP ... the experts have a slightly different story to tell. So I tend to agree with them. In the case of the people dying from an EMP, they say no, so I say no. In the case of vehicles, they say overall they're pretty ok against EMP, so I am repeating that information.

As to why? I don't know. Personally I think that people should be succeptible to EMP. But everywhere I've read says that it's not a danger. Of course as you mentioned to be hit by it, you're going to suffer all the other nasty effects. EMP's are effective on a SREMP out to the 2psi overpressure range. That's a looooong distance.