Commercials and Idiots 
2003 Reader Submission
Pending Acceptance
Most of my immediate family, going back 2 generations, have all attended the same high school. I was proud to attend it, at least until the spring of my Junior year. While some schools can boast about graduates who have become famous, my school has tried to forget it's most (in)famous students. I have had the dubious honor of attending school with people who believe entirely to much of what they see on television.
These teenagers decided to re-enact a scene from television. One fine spring day, right after school, they drove to a side street near our school. Two of them exited the car, one carrying a video camera. He went to the side of the road. Of the two still inside the car, one was driving and the other sat in the passenger seat with another camera. The fourth, and most likely future Darwin winner, stood in the middle of the street. On his word, his 'friends' accelerated straight at him. He attempted to jump over the car. Now, in my calculus class the day after this incident, we worked out exactly how fast the car would have had to be moving for this to succeed (assuming the jumper could clear the car in the first place). The total we came up with was somewhere around 80 MPH. From the video shot from the inside of the car, we can tell they were doing approximately 35 MPH.
Of course, the jumper came no where close. His vertical leap was roughly half of what it needed to be. His legs impacted on the windsheild, shattering it along with several bones. The tape made it's way into the media, and soon spread across the nation. It was even used by many to attempt to get several television shows, which features similar stunts, removed from television.
The boys all survived, albeit with various injuries and legal fees/fines, but I am confident they will soon find a creative way to remove themselves from the gene pool.
Oh, and contrary to popular belief, they were trying to emulate a Reebok commercial, not Jackass, although the Jackass stunt could have signaled to the participants that it was possible.
And, to make this matter even more embarassing for my old school, the television crews arrived about 2 hours later to do reports and interviews. The only students left in the school at this point were those who had just left detention, so, of course, they were the ones to represent us on the evening news across the country. Submitted on 10/07/2002
Submitted by:
Jeff Chambers
Reference:
news/tv Spring 2001
Copyright © 2002 DarwinAwards.com
|
