OFF: Re: Nominee for this year's Darwin Awards

[Le Monsieur Damon]

On Thu, 13 Jun 1996, Paul G Ward wrote:
> The Arizona Highway Patrol came upon a pile of smoldering metal
> embedded into the side of a cliff rising above the road at the apex of
> a curve. The wreckage resembled the site of an airplane crash, but it
> was a car. The  type of car was unidentifiable at the scene. The lab
> finally figured out what it was and what had happened.
> [ ... ]
> ... the automobile remained on the straight highway for about 2.5 miles
> (15-20) seconds before the driver applied and completely melted the
> brakes,  blowing the tires and leaving thick rubber marks on the road
> surface, then  becoming airborne for an additional 1.4 miles and
> impacting the cliff face at a  height of 125 feet leaving a blackened
> crater 3 feet deep in the rock.

OK... how does a Chevy Impala become airborne?  The first paragraph
implies that the truck was on the road below the crash site.  Now, unless
a Chevy Impala has wings, it shouldn't be able to rise above the road, no
matter how fast (up to escape velocity, at any rate).

Damon Capehart          | "I think we should eliminate semicolons from the
aka Le Monsieur         |  English language; nobody uses them anymore
dcapehar at utdallas.edu   |  anyway." - one of Dilbert's anonymous coworkers