A man pushed his car. He stopped when he reached a hotel at which point he knew he was bankrupt. Why?

He was playing monopoly and landed on someone elses hotel =P

rofl AIdon, nice

Along similar lines:

There was a train accident. Nobody was hurt or killed, but there were 2 dead on the police list. How?

Yay Aidon... that's correct.

Along similar lines:

There was a train accident. Nobody was hurt or killed, but there were 2 dead on the police list. How?

It was carrying a couple of corpses for transport.

Nope

Kind of like 'The music stopped and the lady fell'...why? But that's one of them "you gotta ask a bunch of yes/no questions" in order to know the answer.

On the train note .. my first guess would be the two deaths is what caused the accident. But you didn't use "in" within the setup: "Nobody was hurt or killed in the accident...".

There was a train accident. Nobody was hurt or killed, but there were 2 dead on the police list. How?

The police made a mistake. I know that's wrong, but it's probably more likely to happen in real life than the correct answer :).

On the train note .. my first guess would be the two deaths is what caused the accident. But you didn't use "in" within the setup: "Nobody was hurt or killed in the accident...".
Sadly, this isn't correct either.
The police made a mistake. I know that's wrong, but it's probably more likely to happen in real life than the correct answer .
well, you're right about the RL accuracy, but it's not the answer to the riddle. =p

The train one is baking my brain. I guess i can't think "outside the box" :(

I don't know what is meant by police list, really.

List of what?

Was the ME or Coroner called? They would be the ones responsible for any on site deaths.

What did the autopsy say?

There's all sorts of potential answers, but none are particularly satisfying. This is an example of a lateral thinking puzzle.

1. John and Jane Nobody died in the train crash.

2. The police used the list to swat flies, and killed two.

3. The police list has nothing to do with the train accident. Two people died in an unrelated car accident.

4. Aidon's answer of two corpses on the train.

5. The train accident was caused when two traffic controllers in an office miles away got into a fight and killed each other.

6. The sickly parents of the drunk train engineer died of shock when they heard about the accident.

7. The ambulance rushing to the train accident ran over two pedestrians.

The success of a lateral thinking puzzle is not in coming up with a possible answer. If you think 'outside the box', there are innumerable answers. The puzzle is successful if the answer is satisfying -- i.e. makes you say, 'oh yeah, I should've thought of that', as opposed to 'that's plain silly... who would ever use a gun to fire bullets made of ice'.

It could probably be worded a bit better, but that's how we were given the word problem when it was posed to our Odyssey of the Mind team (creative thinking competion popular in some areas).

If I could reword the question it would read:
There was a train accident. Nobody was hurt or killed who was involved in the accident, but there were two people listed as dead on the police report.
(For Fyyr: Police report containing witness reports, a list of all of the passengers, injuries/casualties)

Were Mr & Mrs Dead on the train, Dead being a popular last name in Uzbekistan?

Were Mr & Mrs Dead on the train, Dead being a popular last name in Uzbekistan?
winner!

But then wouldn't the correct sentence be: "There were two Deads on the report".

Adding an s for the pural form of their last name. Dead is the plural form of itself, however, not when used as a last name.

It's worded like that to be confusing in that regard. To say it perfectly correct gives away the answer.