You all know about the Darwin Awards - It's an annual honour given
to the person who did the gene pool the biggest service by killing
themselves in the most extraordinarily stupid way.

Last Year's winner was the fellow who was killed by a Coke machine
  which toppled over on top of him as he was attempting to tip a
  free soda out of it.

This year's nominee is:

  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.  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 Chevy Impala out into the desert and found a
long, straight stretch of road.  Then he attached the JATO unit to
his car, jumped in, got up some speed and fired off the JATO!

  The facts as best as could be determined are that the operator of
the 1967 Impala hit JATO ignition at a distance of approximately 3.0
miles from the crash site.  This was established by the prominent
scorched and melted asphalt at the location.  The JATO, if
operating properly, would have reached maximum thrust within 5
seconds, causing the Chevy to reach speeds well in excess of 350
mph and 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
afterburner, basically causing him to become insignificant for the
remainder of the event.  However, 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.  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 rom a piece of
debris believed to be a portion of the steering wheel.