I introduced you to Skip in the other half of this saga, (Bio of a Darwin Contender) http://DarwinAwards.com/slush/new/pending20060609-224635.html well as Paul Harvey would say, “Here is the rest of the story”.

Skip liked fast cars, specifically he liked Plymouth Roadrunner’s. Now these are nice cars but if you have Darwin personality traits they really aren’t the best car for you to own.

This summer of 1983 was a busy year for Skip he went through 3 of these cars. If you look at these incidents one at a time you might think they were too common to be included in the Darwin’s for an honorable mention, but taken all together in the 3 month time frame they happen I think it really adds up to a serious shot at putting himself in the record books. Just as a side note cars were totaled, but no innocent bystanders were hurt in the commission of these acts of stupidity.

Roadrunner #1

See Skip drive See Skip drive fast See Skip drive fast past off-duty sheriff See Skip clip sheriff See Skip go out of control and total his car on power pole See Skip argue with sheriff about how if had got out of his way this accident would not have happened.

I didn’t see this one but passengers in his car and Skip both told me the details later. From what Skip told me the off-duty sheriff he hit before going into the power pole didn’t identify himself as a sheriff until his on-duty counterparts arrived. He just let Skip rant about how it was all of the sheriff’s fault for driving too slow.

Yes, I think anybody who would be a passenger in car with Skip deserves a honorable mention too.

Roadrunner #2

Skip and his buddies out on the town. Skip stops in town and fills up his gas tank. While he is there he fills up a gas can for his buddy’s car that had run out of gas outside of town. Of course the logical thing to do with a full can of gas is to put it into the back seat along the 3 people you already have back there.

They get to where they are going to put gas in the other car but someone has dropped something on the floor of the backseat.

Wait for it…

Grab your lighter to look for the thing you dropped.

Of course the this ignites the fumes from the gas. Amazingly enough Skip and all of the passengers are able to flee the car unharmed, short a few hairs on there bodies perhaps.

What is really impressive about this story is that by time the fire department arrived the car was fully involved and the decision was made to let it “Burn it self out”. This actually made sense in that it was in fairly rural area and there wasn’t any real danger of it spreading to anything else.

I went back to look at it the next day and the fire had been so hot that the wheels had actually melted into the asphalt.

Roadrunner #3

In the first story about Skip I mentioned that we were in the Coast Guard together in Middletown CA. Our housing was rented duplexes in a country club about 10 miles from our station.

In order to get to our station you needed to go through town and turn off on this road the CG had built to access the station. This road was 4 miles of twisting, turning, and dipping road thru private land until it got to the station. Posted speed limit on this road was 25 mph.

One morning Skip was driving to work and of course Roadrunners don’t run well at only 25 mph so he was going considerably faster. One section of the road traveled through a cow pasture that was lower then the surrounding countryside. When the road was built they raised it so there wouldn’t be any issues with water in the winter time.

This area was prone to a lot of ground fog. If you haven’t experienced fog like this it’s real fun thing to be driving along with perfect visibility on a beautiful morning only to go to a condition where you can’t see the front of your car.

The section of the road that went thru the pasture was a long straightaway that you could really pour the speed on if you wanted to. Well, Skip wanted to. He passed the firs cattle crossing and opened her up. He knew the road was a straight shot so it would be ok. He wasn’t bothered by the patches of ground fog on the road because they were small isolated spots and the road went straight through them.

Unfortunately, the cows liked standing on the road and choose too this morning. Skip hit a small herd going about 60 mph. That day he learned that 4000lbs of Detroit steel will lose when put up against a herd of Moo Cows.

Skip totaled his car. Killed one cow outright and the farmer had to put down two others because of injuries. I happened to be on watch that morning when Skip was driving in and got to field the call from the irate farmer about the “Lunatic driving the sports car into his cows”.

About the only good thing that came out of the cow incident is that Skip couldn’t afford to buy any more cars that summer, thus making the world a little safer.

Submitted on 06/17/2006

Submitted by: Kevin Baker
Reference:

Copyright © 2006 DarwinAwards.com

James said:
Definitely Keep: Personal Account
Kevin, you really ought to write a book about "Skip"! I think this will nicely complement your other story. It matters not how "common" the incidents were. Three cars totalled in three months is NOT common, and I wonder what other trouble he got into since then! Was he drummed out of the USCG? :-) Thanks for yet another good laugh!

Jorge said:
Definitely Keep: Personal Account

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