Protesting motorcycle helmet laws…

Philip A. Contos, 55, was trying to take a stand against the strict motorcycle helmet laws in Onondaga, N.Y., when he flipped over the handlebars after braking suddenly….and died in a motorcycle accident due to a fatal brain injury. Maybe he should have started with protesting bicycle helmet laws?

Drinking gasoline…

…and then lighting a cigarette. North Carolina resident Gary Allen Banning accidentally took a swig of gasoline out of an unmarked container, thinking it was a tasty boozy beverage. Though he spit it out immediately, he tried to erase the taste from his mouth with a nice cigarette. Apparently gas and fire don’t mix.

Ramming elevator doors until they open…

…and then falling down the elevator shaft. A handicapped man in South Korea got a bit agitated at an elevator that took too long to arrive, and began ramming the doors with his wheelchair (and yes, the wheelchair makes this story more tragic, but also more stupid). Unfortunately, the doors weren’t the sturdiest, and slid open, sending him down the shaft to his death.

Trying a Chinese fire drill…

…in a convertible. For those who don’t know what a Chinese fire drill is, it’s when you stop the car and run around to the other side, switching places with a passenger. Not the safest, but usually not deadly, unless you decide to try it without stopping the car, and the car is a convertible. Such was the lesson Kentucky resident Kelita H. learned in 2010. Woops.

Getting an enema…

…of liquor. Enemas are a bit gross, so we won’t go into detail on the process, but remember how quickly things can be absorbed into the bloodstream from certain areas of the body. So when Michael decided to take sherry enema because he was unable to drink due to a throat illness, he ended up with a blood alcohol level of 0.47 percent, which is over the fatal limit by a lot.

Trying to joust…

…on motor scooters. Trying to impress a girl almost never ends well for any involved, so when two university students decided to battle over a girl in Taiwan in 2004, sparks flew. Literally. Rather than a standard arm wrestling match, they decided to joust on their motor scooters, and rammed directly into each other at 50 mph. Worst part? Apparently the girl said she had no interest in either of them. Talk about insult to injury!

Trying to fake your own death…

…but accidentally succeeding. Insurance fraud is a big problem, and Thierry was feeling the pressure when he was having trouble collecting after a fire at his restaurant. So he set his car on fire, called the police, and stabbed himself to make it look like a robbery or bizarre highway attack. But apparently when you stab yourself, you’re supposed to avoid the arteries.

Cleaning your chimney…

…With a hand grenade. Chimney sweeping is never as easy or fun as they make it look in “Mary Poppins,” but usually isn’t fatal. Unless you decide that since your broom isn’t long enough, you need to attach the brush to a chain and weigh it down to reach the bottom. With a hand grenade. Marko, 55, figured out it was a grenade, but only after he tried to weld it to a chain. Welding + hand grenade = sorry, Marko.

Taking a leak…

…on an electrical transformer. When you gotta go, you gotta go. But not necessarily after you’ve climbed a barbed wire fence to get into an electric substation and opened fire on a transformer at the top. As you can imagine, urine and massive amounts of electrical currents don’t mix well, and that was the end of two drunk frat boys from Tennessee. Talk about getting caught with your pants down…

Disguising your identity to commit a robbery…

…with toxic spray paint. Apparently forgoing the standard black ski mask, 23-year-old James decided to don a face mask of gold spraypaint in order to rob a Sprint store in South Carolina in 2009. After leaving the scene of the crime, he began to have trouble breathing and died shortly after of asphyxiation as the cops were closing in. He wasn’t going to get away with it, but it’s still a bummer.