The San Francisco Quake of 1989 that hit just as the World Series was set to get underway, broke the upper deck of the Oakland Bay Bridge. Amazingly, no one was killed at least until our winner came along 30 minutes after the fact. The account I read at the time said the driver said she *had* to get across the bridge so she gunned the throttle and tried to jump the gap.

What she didn't notice in all the movies where cars jump a gap is that she needed to have an up ramp to make the jump and she had to know the right speed to hit it at. The lack of an up ramp meant her car was headed down the second the front wheel left the edge of the pavement. That lack of attention to detail made her a Darwin winner.

Our second winner may have known about the need for the up ramp but didn't understand that ramp shape and speed also matters. Years earlier, the same bridge was being converted to one way traffic on each deck. Caltrans built a hump to protect the workmen who were lowering the floor of the upper tunnel on Yerba Buena Island. The hump was a platform that was raised about 4 feet off the tunnel floor and spanned the width of the tunnel. You would drive up one side of the hump, go along for about 10 feet and then drop back down to the asphalt. Think trapezoid and you have the hump's profile - two straight-line slopes and a horizontal top. It gave the construction workers who were in the lower tunnel head room as they lowered the entire upper tunnel floor while allowing traffic to flow at the same time. So there was our second winner's up ramp.

The mistake our second jumper made was to hit the up ramp way too fast. The up ramp had no lead-in curve, it was just a sheet of steel plate set at an angle. The car was going so fast when it hit the steel plate that it literally disintegrated. Parts were found hundreds of feet from the impact. Amazingly, neither the hump nor the workers inside were injured and as it was very late at night and traffic was light, no other cars were hit.

Submitted on 07/29/2008

Submitted by: Michael Greene
Reference: October 1989 http://youtube.com/watch?v=pq_4xvYc9X4

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Candi said:
Definitely Keep: Darwin Award
The first one I remember hearing about on the news the year before my family left NJ, where my dad was stationed. Sadly enough, he wasn't surprised at the driver's idiocy; apparently stupid driving is infectious in the area. As for the second, I'll have to reserve judgement until I can talk to my dad; he's from Oakland, CA, and he may have heard of this when it happened.

James said:
Neutral: For Darwin's Eyes
It might have been better if you submitted these separately, but I will keep it for Darwin just the same. The first one is probably a winner, despite the fact that panic could have been as much an ingredient as stupidity. The second, however, doesn't have enough information to convict. For all I know, the gent was speeding, drunk, and/or unaware of the existence of the "ramp". Even if he DID deliberately jump, we don't have the article. Nevertheless, I will defer to Darwin. Thanks, Michael!

Tracy said:
Definitely Keep: Darwin Award
I like the first story - and if we can find evidence, then it could be a winner. The second isn't as amusing

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