I can't access the Darwin awards, but which is your personal favorite. Truth be known, I want to use the best one to insult someone, but since I can't access the site, I feel rather subdued. Any suggestions?
I almost participated in one the other night. Driving along the freeway here in Dallas, I noticed a car on the side of the road with people around it. The traffic was too heavy for me to change lanes, so I slowed down. Then, right before I get to them, the idiot walks back off of the shoulder into my lane! Luckily I had been watching him and I had time to get out of the way before I nailed him and, most likely, killed him. Idiot.
umm, it is still accessible http://www.darwinawards.com/ The best one was the original, imo. (I think it was the original?) the guy who found the solid rocket booster and attached it to his Chevy. http://www.darwinawards.com/darwin/darwin1995-04.html
There was an episode of "Myth Busters" on the other day where they recreated the 67 Impala with a JATO attached to the roof scenario. Cool stuff. Has anyone else seen Myth Busters on the Discovery channel?
According to their testing, it was not a myth. What the show did was, buy a 67 Impala and actually strap a JATo to the roof, exactly like it was supposedly done. They took it out to the desert and indeed got it up to speed. However, they didnt crash their car like the other guy did.
ah, man. Darwin confirms it bogus, too. Why'd you have to go and ruin it for me. I always assumed it was welded to the back bumper ala Batman. But I figured the car had no chance to go straight and would just spin donuts and start rolling. Plus, why wouldn't he have his stupid friends out there with him.
is anyone reading the same thing I am. in the link that heypartner provided, it clearly states that the incident in Arizona never occured. CONFIRMED BOGUS BY DARWIN. "This Darwin Award is the most popular of all time. Considered true for years, it was later debunked as an Urban Legend by the Arizona Department of Public Safety. The story fooled the judges in 1995, so JATO has been grandfathered in as a Darwin Award Winner. "
When they tested this myth on the show, that is one of the problems they ran into. They had all this engineers involved to make sure the JATO was attached to the roof perfectly parallel so that what you mentioned wouldn't happen. I think they had some retired NASA guy involved to make sure they did it right. Also, they had to reinforce the roof so that the JATO didnt come loose or tear apart the car. Oh, and they did all this with a remote. They didnt actually have anyone ride in the car during the test. In the end, based on their successful test, they proved it COULD happen but that logic tells us that it probably didnt based purely on the exact science involved in making sure the car doesnt go out of control.
I saw the TV show also. They re-created the urban legend, but were denied use of a JATO booster, so they attached 4-5 smaller retail-style rockets instead.
I'm not certain, but I think they were just typical hobby shop rocket kits (very large ones, however). The incredible part was that they said the power output by this combination of rockets (I now want to say 8, rather than 4-5) was more than that of the JATO they were originally asking for.
Thats right. They used the 6 smaller rockets because they said the JATO burnout would only last a few seconds and in order to go the car up to the alleged speed, they had to use a series of sequentially fired smaller ones to keep the car going. They also did some other tests: Leaping Lawyer myth Biscuit Bazooka The airplane toilet myth (where allegedly an obese woman got stuck to it because of the vaccumm) and my personal fav: They tested out the coke and pop rocks theory (the urban legend that says this combo will make a person's stomach explode). They actually bought a pig's stomach and kept filling it up with pop rocks and coke to try and make it explode. In the end, they couldnt get the stomach to explode until they added something ridiculous like 3 or 4 boxes of pop rocks and 6-8 liters of Pepsi. I think they had to add baking soda to finally get it to explode. It was spectacularly gross if i do say so myself.
Here's a contender for this year: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2003/02/18/national1208EST0540.DTL <B><font size=4>Boy, 13, drowns carrying heavy chain across a pond while imitating stunt from movie 'Blue Crush' </font></B> <I>(02-18) 09:08 PST PORT SALERNO, Fla. (AP) -- A 13-year-old boy drowned mimicking a stunt he'd seen in a movie when he tried to swim across a pond with a heavy tow chain wrapped around his waist, his friends said. Anthony Michael Alfonsin and three or four friends were trying to imitate a scene from "Blue Crush," where a girl training for a surfer competition holds a large rock while running on the ocean bottom. Instead, they decided to use various items such as a baby carriage, a milk jug and a 10-foot tow chain they had found in a nearby clump of trees, authorities and witnesses said. They then tried to swim across a 15-foot deep man-made pond Sunday night with the objects. Danielle Stremski, 14, said she "went only a little bit of the way" with the chain. "I took it off because it was too heavy." Anthony then took the chain and tied it around his waist, witnesses said. Stremski said the friends tried to help Anthony but the chain was too heavy, adding, "he said he was drowning." The friends ran to the home of one of the children, but neither that girl's parents nor rescue workers could save the boy. </I>
