Canada's Worst Driver: Difference between revisions

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''Andrew Younghusband, opening season 5.'' }}

 

 

While the show's goals are serious, a lot of it is mainly [[Played for Laughs]]. Yes, there are [[Asian Drivers]]. Yes, there are [[Women Drivers]]. [[Subverted Trope|They're no worse than the other contestants.]] The show started in September 2005 and is still ongoing, having wrapped up its ''seventh'' season in December 2011.

* [[The Alleged Car]]: Mike from Season 5 bought these exclusively.

** Over the course, Season 6 managed to [[Rasputinian Death|turn a nice new 2010 Chevrolet Camaro into one.]]

*** At least it still runs well.

* [[Asian Drivers]]: Not that they're any worse than their fellow contestants.

** Jason, Season 3 winner

* [[The Big Guy]]: Former police Sgt. Cam Woolley is a large man. His no-nonsense stare, intolerance of lawbreakers and his position as a former traffic cop make him a guy you ''don't'' want to piss off.

** Paul and Tommy from Season 6 showed another side of this trope when they had troubles fitting in the cars.

* [[Camera Abuse]]: Cameras are sent ''flying'' several times a season. The producers seldom let the resulting footage go unaired.

* [[Captain Crash]]: The drivers sent to rehab for recklessness or obliviousness tend to be this. A number of them have wrecked so many cars that they've lost count. Andrew will sometimes comment that these drivers are lucky to be alive.

* [[Car Meets House]]: Occasionally played straight by contestants in their past experience. And in Season Four, which was held at a closed [[Prison|jail]], there was an onscreen case of Laundry Truck Meets Prison.

* [[Cool Car]]: Many challenges (often ones that require the use of speed and control) will often use fancy cars, mainly of the classic variety.

** This got to the point where people ''pleaded'' with the producers to stop using classic cars on the show. So for Season 6, they instead bought a nice shiny new Camaro! [[Broken Treasure|You can guess what happened to it.]]

* [[Decided By One Vote]]: With only 5 judges, tie-breaking votes happen a ''lot''.

** Occasionally averted entirely when one candidate does way better than all the rest (and all agree that the candidate should leave), or when only one judge dissents (in Season 5, all judges agreed that Angelina should be the worst driver, save for Cam Woolley who named Mike Butt instead.)

*** Perhaps this is why there was no manual transmission challenge in Season 7.

* [[Drunk Driver]]: Sadly, some of the contestants have indeed done this.

** Colin from Season 2 took none of the show seriously. It resulted in him getting expelled, his car towed, and his keys destroyed.

** Andrew knew about the street race mentioned under [[Drives Like Crazy]], as the drives are always filmed. He was ''pissed''.

** In some challenges, obstacles are carved and painted styrofoam. On at least two occasions, they've run out of obstacles before the nominees can complete the challenges.

* [[Everybody Laughs Ending]]: Father Giles and Guy--his brother and nominator--walked away from the Water Tank Challenge laughing after Father Giles stated he thought he did fairly well. {{spoiler|He did: although he got soaked, he didn't collide with anything.}}

* [[Friend to All Living Things]]: Lauri from Season 7 ... when its not affecting her performance of course! (She was shown driving with a car filled with additional "passengers", mainly pets.)

* [[Ghost Town]]: Season 3 was held in Edgar, a ghost town in Ontario.

* [[Hypocritical Humor]]: In the first episode of season 5, Father Giles recites a prayer for safe driving that explicitly ends with "so that we may concentrate on the road". Cut to the good father being distracted by a sign indicating the "World's Largest Pumpkin".

** During {{spoiler|Sly's}} final public drive in the season 7 finale, someone tried to take a picture of the test car with a cell phone camera while driving.

* [[Inspirationally Disadvantaged]]: Aaron from Season 7 is a Type C, as he does have a positive influence on the other nominees. He even [[Invoked]] it by refusing to graduate so that his condition (he has to walk with a cane and has difficulty speaking, amongst other things) would continue to remind the other candidates of the dangers of bad driving. {{spoiler|He happily subverted [[Too Good for This Sinful Earth]] with his graduation in the last episode.}} He also subverted it--Aaron was an absolutely terrible driver himself.

* [[Karma Houdini]]: Scott may never face charges for his literally criminal driving. However...

* [[Loophole Abuse]]: The "Cool Bus", a s{{color|purple|'''c'''}}h{{color|purple|'''ool'''}} bus that was modified to skirt the driving restrictions on standard driver's licenses. Andrew can't believe that taking out most of the seats, painting it so it doesn't look like a school bus (it was painted purple), and altering the sign on it (as demonstrated) is enough that anyone with a standard license can drive it, and it doesn't even have ''seat belts''.

* [[Malaproper]]: Angelina from Season 5 did this a lot. Near the very end of the season, after being repeatedly told that she should never, ever drive again, she repeatedly and angrily told Andrew that "I'm [[Confusing Multiple Negatives|not not]] driving!"

* [[Medal of Dishonor]]: The title "Canada's Worst Driver" and the crappy trophy the "winner" gets at the end.

** Mike Butt had an even bigger moment of this in the last episode of the season, when he nearly ran over an old lady who was crossing an intersection. It eventually led to him concluding he didn't deserve to drive, and cutting up his licence in front of the experts' panel.

* [[Nervous Wreck]]: These show up a ''lot''. They're as scary as road ragers and ditzes.

* [[Point and Laugh Show]]: To a certain extent, but the point ''is'' quite serious: Take bad drivers and make them better.

* [[Preacher Man]]: Father Giles from Season Five is a Roman Catholic priest. He considered his time on the show a spiritual journey as well as a learning opportunity, and was genuinely happy to have gone through all this.

* [[Prison]]: Season 4 was held in the Guelph Correctional Center in Ontario (the jail had been closed in 2001). Four drivers who had committed literally criminal driving offenses were locked up for a few hours:

** Donna, who admitted to [[Drunk Driver|driving drunk]]

** If nobody does well enough to graduate, the judges may decide to make everyone stay. This happens once a season, but has itself been subverted twice. In both Seasons 5 and 6, when the contestants were asked if they deserved or wanted to graduate, ''each one said no.'' The Season 5 requests was the first time it had happened in ''any'' of the Driver Rehabilitation Programs (there are several similar shows in other countries). Both times, their wishes were honoured.

** In the sixth episode of Season 2, there came about a ''fourth'' option: both Sean and Jodi were considered to be fully rehabilitated (Sean of his speed addiction, Jodi of her fear), and both graduated. To be fair, nobody had graduated in Episode 5 (It would have been Sean, had he admitted that slower was safer).

* [[Sure Why Not]]: Season 5's Mike Butt talked about a driving game called Shopping Cart Hockey, where you pushed a shopping cart with a car. It was used as a challenge. Season 6 had something similar with a soccer ball, and Season 7 used oversized curling rocks.

* [[Take That]]: Andrew has stated that in the show's early seasons, many were nominated out of spite. Things have changed since.

** Went the other way during the Season 7, Episode 6 opener, when Andrew mentioned the Dutch Equivalent; the host of that show got struck by the car a contestent was driving.

* [[Watch the Paint Job]]: [[That Poor Car|They never do...]] About the worst example would be the contestants burning out the clutches of five cars. The last contestant was exempted because the producers were out of cars.

* [[Wiper Start]]:

** Michael, when trying to start his car to drive to the rehab center in Season 2, popped the hood instead.