You may know about the Darwin Awards - It's an annual honor given to people who do the gene pool the biggest service by killing themselves in the most extraordinarily stupid way. Last year's winner was a guy who was killed by a Coke machine when it toppled over on him as he was trying to tip a free soda out of it.
The nomination this year came from the Arizona Highway Patrol after they came across a pile of smoldering metal embedded in the side of a cliff above a curve in the road. The wreckage resembled the site of an airplane crash, but is was a car. The type of car was not identifiable at the scene-the lab finally figured out what it was and what had happened. It seems that a guy had somehow gotten hold of a JATO unit (Jet Assisted Take Off - actually a solid-fuel rocket) that is used to give heavy military transport planes an extra push for taking off from short airfields. He had driven his '67 Chevy Impala into the desert and found a long, straight stretch of road. He then attached the JATO unit to his car, jumped in, got up some speed, and fired off the JATO! As best as can be determined, the JATO was ignited approximately 3 miles from the crash site. This was established by the prominent scorched and melted asphalt at that location. If operated properly, the JATO would have reached maximum thrust within 5 seconds, at which time the Chevy would have reached a speed well in excess of 350 mph. With the JATO continuing at full power for an additional 20-25 seconds, the driver, soon to be pilot, most likely would have experienced G-forces usually reserved for dog-fighting F-14 jocks under full afterburners-basically causing him to become insignificant for the remainder of the event.
The automobile managed to remain on the straight highway for about 2.5 miles and 15-20 seconds before the driver applied and completely melted the brakes, blowing the tires, and leaving thick rubber marks on the road surface. He then became airborne and traveled for an additional 1.4 miles before impacting the cliff 125 feet above the road; leaving a blackened crater 3-feet deep in the rock.
Most of the driver's remains were not recoverable; however, small fragments of bone, teeth, and hair were extracted from the crater, and fingernail and bone shards were removed from a piece of debris believed to be a portion of the steering wheel.
I would definitely vote for this guy; although, like his predecessors, he
would have to receive the award posthumously. What an idiot! Everyone
knows you have to use a second JATO unit as a retro-rocket to stop!