You're no different than other Americans--you want to know how to jump out of moving vehicles. And, aside from Colt Seavers, who else would you want telling you how to do it. So, with that in mind, here's some helpful hints from Les Miles on the best ways to accomplish your vehicular dismount. The more you know...
Ford Fairmont - The Fairmont is your typical sedan, so this would probably be the most popular technique that I teach. The great thing about this technique is that it doesn't matter if you're driving or if you're the passenger. All you do is open your door, and when the time is right, you jump out of the car with your legs pointing towards the front of the car and you attempt to do a baseball slide. Eventually, you will stop. Make sure to keep your feet a little elevated so that they don't catch on the ground and break under the force of your own momentum. It's best to let your powerful hip bone and thigh bone absorb the landing. Also, because you have a lot of leg skin, you can afford to lose some. 
AMC Eagle - The Eagle affords you a much different perspective than your typical sedan like the Fairmont. Because of the Eagle's sweet elevation, you can actually bring your knees up into your chest and conform your body into a ball and just peacefully roll to a stop. If you want, you can probably hold your knees together with one arm, and protect your head with the other. Because I value form and function, I use both arms to tuck in my knees and just make sure my head is prepared for a jolt. The success rate on this dismount is 100% because you always eventually come to a stop.
El Camino - (Note: If you are leaving an El Camino via the front, please see "Ford Fairmont".) If you're like me, you probably thought you'd just be able to let the tailgate down and just "run" off of the back of the vehicle. It only takes one attempt at this to realize how wrong you are. But it does take a second attempt to figure out just exactly where everything went wrong. Where I kept messing up is that I was trying to run in the opposite direction that the Camino was traveling. Although I have never attempted a third dismount of an El Camino, I can now safely assume that the best way to successfully leap from this vehicle would be to get down into a sprinter's stance with your feet against the tailgate and when you feel comfortable, start running diagonally towards the cab of the El Camino and leap out at your top speed. You should be able to either keep running, or just slide to a stop on your feet--provided your balance is good.
John Deere - The key to this dismount is distance--and arm flailing. If you don't get the distance, you run the chance of getting run over by giant tires. If you don't flail your arms, people won't really get the proper perspective of how high up you actually were. If you do get the proper distance, you should be able to just land flat on your back--like you were jumping on a mattress. The ground will break your fall. If you don't get proper clearance, you'll want to roll back underneath the tractor, as this will assure you of being out of the tractor tires' path. However, this dismount plan is not to be used for any tractor carrying a plow or the like. (Note: Please, please, please make sure not to get your shoestrings caught in any of the tractor's pedals before dismount.)
Hang Glider - Generally, there really is no reason to jump off of a hang glider, as you can just choose to crash it as easily as you can choose to leave it. However, if you're being held captive by somebody flying a hang glider, the best place to look for an escape would be over water or trees. They say landing in water from a high rate of speed is similar to hitting cement, but they don't tell you that the cement is wet! Water is fine. Trees can be a nice secondary choice, just look for a lot of trees. If you are in the desert, look for a tall dune to land on. Not only are they soft, but they can be incredibly fun to roll down--and there's no harm in making the best of a bad situation.
Helicopter - I never recommend jumping out of a helicopter. Because our human heads weigh--on average--62 pounds, it is hard not to land on your head when jumping out of a helicopter. You're basically a human jart, which is only good when you're trying to hit something, not avoid it. If you must jump out of a helicopter, try to spread your body out right before impact so as to absorb as much of the impact through as much of your body as possible. You might think it would be best to "cannonball" the ground, but you would be mistaken. Unless, of course, this is a water dismount. Then, yeah, cannonball it up.
Rickshaw - The rickshaw dismount depends entirely on the rickshaw driver--or "rickey. Either way, however, a foot-based landing is entirely possible. The only difference is that with a speedy rickey, you may lose your balance when you dismount, so it's best to do a cool somersault when you land.
Escalator - I still don't always get this one right. The key is to wait until your step is the last step, and then you leap up and out, avoiding the metal teeth of the escalator monster. You must make sure that you wait until your step is the final step or else you may just be jumping out and up onto the final step, and you won't have enough time to jump again. Escalator deaths continue to climb and climb every year without stopping--and it does so without any irony whatsoever.
No comments:
Post a Comment