Universal Driver's License: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

{{quote|'''Henry Jones''': ''I didn't know you could fly a plane!''

 

 

 

Sure, we all can be expected to drive about any car or light truck out there, since the controls are more or less standardized, but beyond that realm, most earth-bound vehicles require some specialized training or familiarity with their controls to drive. Even something as common as a motorcycle is beyond the experience of many people (What's that lever on the left handlebar? If you said 'brake' guess again, that thing is your clutch.)

 

Can be [[Hand Wave|handwaved]] as an [[Acceptable Breaks From Reality|acceptable break from reality]]. Also see [[Improbable Piloting Skills]]. Contrast [[Driving Stick]].

{{examples}}

* Subverted in Part 3 of ''[[JoJo's Bizarre Adventure]]'': with both the pilot and copilot of a plane taken out, Joseph declares he can fly it because he knows how to fly a propeller plane. Kakyoin then yells, "This is a ''jet!''" The plane crashes moments later.

** Joseph tells Jojo while flying the plane: "I've crashed three planes. Ever met someone who's done that?" A nonplussed Jojo replies [[Crowning Moment of Funny|"I'm never flying with you again."]]

*** And then, later in the same series, they get on another plane. Three guesses what happens to it.

* Justified in ''[[Cyborg 009]]'', where one of the title character's cybernetic enhancements gives him the ability to drive any vehicle flawlessly, which allows him to get a lucrative job as a racecar driver during a sabbatical.

** Granted, these are licenses for "anything he builds". Hopefully the building process includes him designing controls he can use.

* Hilariously averted in ''[[Akira]]''. The main characters make several attempts to use military vehicles they're had no training for & each time it goes more farcically bad than the last. The highlight is probably the tank rampage scene in volume 3, where not only do they knock over an entire neighborhood trying to get onto the main road, when they finally total the thing & try to make a hasty escape from the wreckage, they find out the hard way its smoke dischargers were loaded with tear gas!

** Which is mostly caused not by her being unable to handle the vehicle (she's a ''fantastic'' biker), but more by her irritation at the fact that the car isn't a bike.

* In [[Daiakuji]], it is revealed that Satsu has licenses for small planes and boats as well as normal civilian cars.

* [[Lupin III]] himself, as well as the members of his gang, can handle anything from a car to a helicopter to an experimental fighter jet. And on one occasion, the ''space shuttle''.

 

* ''[[Tintin]]'' is the king of this trope. He's too sickeningly talented for words.

** His main weakness seems to be tanks, which he drives ''somewhat'' more awkwardly.

** In the animated series, Captain Haddock is [[Lampshade Hanging|visibly surprised]] by Tintin's clumsy handling of the tank, as though he expected him to adapt to it as easily as he does anything else.

{{quote|"You should have told me you couldn't drive this tank!"

* Razorback from ''[[Marvel Comics]]'' has this as his mutant power. If it moves, he can pilot it. Doesn't explain why he [[Animal-Themed Superbeing|dressed up like a giant warthog]].

* [[Batman]]. Considering the [[Cool Car|Batmobile]], [[Cool Boat|Batboat]], [[Badass Biker|Batpod]], [[Cool Plane|Batplane]], [[Black Helicopter|Batcopter]], and [[Thememobile|other assorted thematic vehicles]] he has in darn near every version, up to and including [[Powered Armor]] and [[Humongous Mecha|mecha]], his training must have been ''extensive''.

** Averted in a late arc. On a mission where he can't get to his snubfighter and has a complicated plan to get the Rogues out of there, [[Ace Pilot|Soontir Fel]] chooses to take the gunner's seat in a two-pilot Y-Wing fighter, giving the pilot's seat to his student Tycho, because [http://img34.imageshack.us/img34/6526/blz16.jpg he's not flight-qualified in a Y-Wing]. Though when he was an Imperial pilot he [http://img141.imageshack.us/img141/7245/blz18.jpg knew them well] and [http://img141.imageshack.us/img141/3955/blz19.jpg shot them down easily], he never qualified to fly them.

 

* The list of varied vehicles [[James Bond]] has ''personally'' used throughout his movies is stunning. Cars, trucks, a fire engine, motorcycles, tanks, snowmobiles, motorboats, hovercraft, gyrocopters, light aircraft, fighter jets, submarines, a [[I Want My Jetpack|jetpack]] and even a space shuttle. The training course for double-0 agents must have one heck of a driver's exam.

* Parodied in ''[[Hot Fuzz]]'': The opening montage states that Nicholas Angel took and excelled in several courses beyond the standard police skillset, including advanced driving (cut to Angel taking a car through a controlled skid-stop)) and advanced ''cycling'' (cut to Angel taking a ''bike'' through a controlled skid-stop).

* Justified in ''[[The Matrix]]'', where learning to pilot/drive any vehicle is simply a matter of having the relevant knowledge [[Instant Expert|uploaded into your brain.]]

* In ''[[Independence Day]]'', a fighter pilot is able to fly an alien spacecraft with a relative minimum of fumbling:

** Of course, the director's cut explicitly shows Steven learning to fly the craft, or at least sitting at its controls, long before he makes the offer to fly it; his confusion with the controls therefore stems more from [[Damn You, Muscle Memory!|not being used to them]] than outright ignorance. It's still a dangerous proposition, but not nearly as foolhardy as it comes off in the theatrical cut.

* By the end of ''[[Wild Wild West (film)|Wild Wild West]]'', it appears that at least one of the heroes (probably [[Gadgeteer Genius|Artemus Gordon]]) has figured out how to drive a giant mechanical spider.

* Justified in ''[[The Fifth Element]]''. At one point, it's explained that Corben's training and experience in his former military unit qualifies him in the operation of a list of vehicles that extends to several pages.

* In ''[[Mighty Morphin Power Rangers]] [[The Movie]]'', a bunch of kids and teens travel to a construction site via monorail. Later, they figure out how to use a fire engine.

* In the cheese-tastic 1980 ''[[Flash Gordon (film)|Flash Gordon]]'' movie, Flash is in a floating city under bombardment. He falls down a chute and finds a Hawkman rocket cycle. Despite having never laid eyes on one before (what with him being a football player from late '70s Earth), he immediately knows what it is, how to use it and even knows to put up the safety bar.

* In ''[[Battlefield Earth]]'', set 1000 years in the future, a group of now cave-dwelling humans come across a group of Harrier jump-jets, from still miraculously working, after some second hand experience from books and a few days with a flight simulator, also miraculously working, they learn to fly them to defeat the group of Aliens currently controlling the planet. These humans had no education whatsoever, only one human was partly educated by the aliens yet still managed to learn to read English. In the original novel there are no Harriers: the bad guy teaches the protagonist how to pilot alien aircraft and the protagonist, in turn, teaches other humans.

** Interestingly, despite his claim in Ep. IV that Anakin was already a great pilot when they first met, Anakin seems to [[Subverted Trope|subvert]] this trope in Ep. I: He doesn't so much "pilot" the Naboo starfighter as "randomly jab the buttons until something happens." Artoo actually does most of the piloting. The only thing we see him piloting is a podracer that he built himself from scratch, so naturally he'd know how to fly it.

*** It's not just knowing how to fly the thing, it's knowing how to fly it through an oft-times tight course, and against Sebulba. Note that humans of any age aren't even meant to be good enough to do that sort of thing, let alone a kid of 10. Oh, and 13 of the 19 pilots never actually finished (1 crashed and died, 1 disappeared, 1 conked out on the start grid, 1 got his engine shredded in a pit-stop, and the other 9 crashed non-fatally at various points during the race).

 

* Averted and parodied in ''[[Animorphs]]''. At one point, on a whim, they decide to steal a tank off this train they were investigating. Marco declares he should drive, [[I Know Mortal Kombat|as he plays tank sims a lot]], but really doesn't expect to get anywhere... and then is shocked to find the controls so well labeled that even a little kid could drive it. "Aren't they even worried that someone could steal these things?!" "Apparently not." [[Drives Like Crazy|They proceed to nearly go off a cliff, drive on the wrong side of a highway and (intentionally) crush their alien infested evil vice principal's house]].

** In a similar vein, in a much earlier book, Marco attempts to drive a car because he's done it in a video game. His driving prompts Jake to say "Do you hate trash cans? Is that your problem? Do you just HATE TRASH CANS?!"

* In ''[[Artemis Fowl]]'', fish smuggler Doodah Day can allegedly drive any vehicle, be it human, fairy or otherwise.

* In Stanisław Lem's novel [[wikipedia:Eden (novel)|Eden]], the explorers {{spoiler|kill one of the Doublers (sentient life forms there)}}, then proceed to return to their ship in the vehicle left behind. The catch? It's a freaking '''spinning top''' which also spins like a wheel, and not on its axis as a normal top would do. Still, the crew manages to figure the controls out rather quickly.

 

* In ''[[Power Rangers Time Force]]'', Lucas (the Blue Ranger) explicitly has this as a knack: "Lucas can drive anything." However, he got into a little trouble when he was caught speeding and tried to show his 31st Century driver's license to a 21st Century cop.

** For that matter, it's amazing that everybody who becomes a Power Ranger automatically knows how to pilot their Zord.

** Though most of the Alien crafts piloted by Sheppard (ie: Puddle Jumpers, The Orion and Atlantis) are controlled by thought, you simply need to think what you want the ship to do, and it does it. Doesn't explain why they all have control sticks though.

*** Having something to do with their hands helps the pilots to focus their thoughts better.

** Lampshaded when a frustrated Chief Tyrol is totally flummoxed as to how Starbuck could even get the gods-damn frakking thing to ''move''.

* This trope is used in ''[[Quantum Leap]]'' to introduce Al's role as observer in the pilot episode: he can show Sam which switches to flick and 'guides' his control inputs but admits that there's no way Sam can land a 1950s supersonic test plane even with holographic assistance, so Sam bails out. A later episode set in a plane above the Bermuda Triangle also showed that when 'The Triangle' (possibly) causes Al to disappear, then Sam still can't fly a plane without help.

* The three hosts of ''[[Top Gear]]'', Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, and James May, probably hold a collective Universal Driver's License, since between the three of them they can operate anything from light aircraft to earthmoving equipment (see the note on Real Life, below)

** Averted in the farming episode when it takes the hosts several minutes just to figure out how to start their new tractors.

* It seems like [[Doctor Who|The Doctor]] has one of these; he'll ride anything from horses, cars (any time period), space-cruise liners and spaceships. It should be mentioned that he needed to take a test to learn how to fly the TARDIS, and he failed. This is all partly justified because in 900 years of life, you probably get the hang of these things.

** It's not just the Doctor. In {{spoiler|''The Curse of the Black Spot'', a 17-century pirate crew}} are flying an alien starship by the end of the episode. Earlier, when {{spoiler|the pirate captain}} first came aboard the TARDIS, he was able to figure out almost instantly what many of the controls were. When the Doctor looked at him in a bit of surprise, he shrugged and said, "A ship's a ship."

* Averted in the ''[[Modern Family]]'' episode "Express Christmas". Cameron insists that having grown up on a farm and knowing how to drive heavy equipment like tractors gives him expertise in driving a rented moving truck, but it grows apparent that it does not.

 

* Subverted in the ''National Lampoon Radio Hour'' sketch "Land A Million", a game show where the contestant was placed aboard a 747 loaded with 30 minutes of fuel, a million dollars in cash, and a ton of TNT. The pilot then bailed out, and the contestant had to get instructions on how to land by answering typical game-show questions.

 

* ''[[Shadowrun]]'' both subverts this trope and plays it straight. There are separate skills for different kinds of vehicles. It's easier to fly a plane if you don't know how to fly a plane but do know how to drive; it's much easier if you actually have some flying experience. But then, from 3rd edition, "for convenience, Shadowrun assumes that characters can automatically accomplish basic vehicle maneuvers, such as... taking the old helicopter for a little sightseeing hop." So apparently your characters do have a universal driver's license but then forget everything when asked to do something more challenging than moving and stopping.

 

* ''[[Operation Flashpoint]]'' [[Playing with a Trope|plays with this trope]]. You, as the gamer, need a little training to handle vehicles like tanks and helicopters, but once you get the hang of it you can use ''any'' enemy vehicles lying around, (no matter which character you are currently controlling and no matter whether or not that ''character itself'' has any training for it). In certain missions, if you manage get your hands on an anti-aircraft ''Shilka'', it's pretty much a [[Lightning Bruiser]] that can single-handedly win the mission. Because of its four [[Gatling Good|gatling cannons]] that can fire on full-automatic to take out '''anything''' the game throws at you - infantry, RPG soldiers, vehicles, tanks, and even helicopters, which you can catch on radar from an unbelievable distance. Some missions will stop you from mounting certain vehicles (especially helicopters) to avoid this trope.

** In ''The Ballad Of Gay Tony'', it's noted that Luis took a two-week piloting class once and the license can be seen.

*** Likewise, the first time Niko gets in a helicopter, he remarks "I haven't flown one of these since the war!", which is odd, considering he was an infantryman. There is no explanation given for Johnny's piloting skills in ''The Lost and Damned''.

* ''[[Front Mission]]'' frequently depicts single characters piloting tanks, but this trope really comes into play for Front Mission 3. In this particular game, you have pilots capable of not only driving their usual [[Real Robot|Wanzers]], but they also apparently can pilot tanks, armored trains, helicopters, and [[Humongous Mecha|mobile weapons]] just as easily. [[Joke Character|One character]] even pilots a methane-powered pickup truck with legs.

* Pepper Roni, the main character of [[Lego Island]] seems to be able to ride on anything from his stakeboard, boats, horses, motor bikes, desert cars, airplanes to a space shuttle. And he's just a pizza delivery boy.

* ''[[Mass Effect]]'' has the Hammerhead ([[Hover Tank|hover]][[Tank Goodness|tank]]) and Mako ([[Awesome Personnel Carrier|IFV]]), but given you almost always have at least one teammate at any given time, it's more likely that (for example) Shepard drives whilst Garrus operates the guns and Tali is watching the sensors/etc. In the one of the Lair Of The Shadow Broker missions, Shepard and Liara are chasing after a Shadow Broker agent in a hovercar, which Shepard is able to fly, albeit badly.

* Alex Mercer in ''[[Prototype (video game)|Prototype]]'' has to separately acquire the skills to pilot armored vehicles and helicopters. Played straight in that the armor skill gives him one-man proficiency with vehicles that require different crews to operate.

* [[Averted Trope|Averted]] in ''[[PlanetSide]]'', where you need certifications in order to use vehicles in addition to weapons and other equipment. Acquiring the certs in question simply requires having a high enough Battle Rank and cert points free and then registering them at a cert terminal, suggesting a case of [[Instant Expert]], but it could be said that characters train in the VR stations for a while before getting their certifications.

* In ''[[Battlezone (1998 video game)|Battlezone 1998]] II'', you (Lt. Cooke) can pilot almost any vehicle. Salvage vehicles, floating missile tanks, walkers, ''morphing alien tanks'', and regular tracked tanks. However, floating tow trucks and artillery seems to baffle Lt. Cooke, as you cannot pilot them.

 

* Lampshaded in ''[[Schlock Mercenary]]'': "I speak warship very fluently."

 

* Grif from ''[[Red vs. Blue]]'' is the Red team's designated vehicle operator. Apparently, this includes [[Dynamic Entry|crashing jeeps through walls]] and [[Improbable Piloting Skills|flying aerial dropships]].

 

** Note that this ability (which carried over to ''[[Darkwing Duck]]'') is pretty much Launchpad's. Darkwing himself has difficulties when in a cockpit; the only time he's flown the Thunderquack without Launchpad involve either autopilot or immediate demolition.

* Lampshaded hilariously in ''[[Justice League]]''. Flash, who's been put in charge of the vehicle in question, explains it best:

** Although played straight with Leela a few seconds later. Apparently knowing "how to drive stick" is all the knowledge you need to pilot an inter-stellar spaceship.

** Subverted again in "Insane in the Mainframe," when [[Heroic Sociopath|Bender]] and [[Ax Crazy|Roberto]] are escaping from a robot insane asylum. They run into a barn, and begin to fly out in an old airplane. The plane rises into the air, turns, and crashes into the barn. Bender and Roberto are promptly seen emerging from the wreckage, continuing their escape on foot.

 

* Anyone capable of [[Driving Stick]] could ''probably'' muddle through behind the wheel of a bus or light truck if they absolutely had to.

** As shown in ''[[Top Gear]]'''s episode where the three drive trucks. They are a bit puzzled by the half-gears, and uphill starts represent a significant problem, but by and large they manage to make the things go.

* In the early days of motoring, of course there were no drivers' licenses, but if there had been, there would have to have been a different one for each and every model of car: the reason being that there was no standardised set of controls. This was used hilariously in an episode of ''[[Top Gear]]'' where Jeremy and James are in a 1910s French car with a [[Blind Idiot Translation|badly translated]] manual and can't figure out how to stop before they hit a busy road.

*** In the ''[[Top Gear]]'' 1940s race Clarkson wasn't allowed to drive the A1 ''Tornado'' steam engine on the main line since a license is needed to do that. And Hammond's Vincent Black Shadow bike broke down because he left the reserve fuel tank tap open and clogged the carburetor.

**** Hammond also damaged his Minsk bike in the Vietnam special and his Opel car in the Botswana challenge by driving them in water, but all of these were more a result of his inattention and fatigue from hours of driving in inhospitable weather (as well as poor judgment in the last case) than by a lack of technical ability typified in the other examples of the trope. Just like forgetting your gas cap on your roof of your Caravan in the middle of a road trip doesn't mean you don't know how to drive a van.

** In one instance someone asked him how much about the Vincent motorcycle he was writing. The talk show host demonstrated his knowledge by opening up the oil tank and dipping a finger in it. This would cause severe burns in most vehicles after use, but Leno knew the oil in the Vincent would be at about room temperature, even after a long ride.

* A cool moment for [[Iron Maiden]]'s [[Bruce Dickinson]] (certified to fly Boeing 757s) was showing on TV that he ''could'' land the NASA Space Shuttle simulator (with a little verbal co-piloting from an expert, but still pretty impressive).

** Indeed. It should be noted that a Space Shuttle doesn't so much "land" as it "plummets to earth in a (hopefully) semi-controlled manner". Different from a Boeing 757 in that you can't abort a landing and climb again if you screw it up the first time in a Space Shuttle. You're dead.

** He also had problems with putting on tire chains though it should have been trivial to someone with his experience. He rarely had a need for them on the roads and ice roads he normally drove on.

* In ''[[Generation Kill]]'', Evan Wright notes that the driver in the team he was embedded in, Corporal Person, wasn't licensed to drive their Humvee. This note was part of a list used for examples in explaining the idea that it's pretty hard to "prepare" for war, that a lot of little things you just can't do anything about will start adding up. Presumably, this was more of a formality fallen by the wayside because of need, since quite a few of the drivers were similarly unlicensed (members of their battalion don't normally operate in vehicles out in the open) and Person jokes at one point that their time spent in the Humvee should qualify him.

** Humvees are automatic transmission, so it wouldn't be hard. It's most likely that he was simply never given the formal training to indicate that he was qualified for that specific military vehicle.

** If registered in European countries, Humvee is legally a truck ("motorized vehicle over 3500kgs loaded weight") and can be driven by anyone holding a truck license. Controls are not different from a 4x4 truck anyway. Some older military trucks are much more demanding - see the [[wikipedia:ZIL 131|Soviet ZIL-131]]: 6x6 transmission, 5-gear main gearbox (out of which 1st is the reduction gear, normally the 2nd is used to start) multiplied by 2-gear transfer case, limited slip differentials actuated by pneumatic controls from the dashboard, tire pressure controlled from the dashboard, all controls hard as set in concrete... [[In Soviet Russia, Trope Mocks You|in Soviet Russia the truck drove you]] more than you drove it.

** The US Army M35 "Deuce and a half" truck similarly has some particular oddities about it, such as a gear shifter that LOOKED like the shifter in a normal car, but had the gears in all the wrong order. The shift pattern ''reverses itself'' halfway through. Going from 1st to 2nd to 3rd is a normal down-up-down motion, but going from 3rd to 4th is not back up again, it's over and ''down'' with 5th being up. Fortunately, it is typically "Army Proofed" by having the shifting positions posted on a metal plate riveted to the dashboard. You still drive the vehicle primarily with brute violence and foul language. Like the Humvee, it's got a starter system that is counter-intuitive to people used to keys, and there's no power assist for any of the steering or shifting. Hope you like grabbing big heaping handfuls of steering wheel and stomping on the clutch like it slept with your wife.

* Farmers in modern developed countries have to know how to operate everything from tractors, which can have three gear sticks and all kinds of attachments, to combine harvesters, trucks, ancient rusty utes, (pickups) motorcycles and then operate and maintain all the seeders, cultivators, sprayers and other complicated machines. Optional extras are horses, light aircraft (ranging from ultra-lights to crop-dusters to helicopters) and [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|ride-on lawnmowers]]. Yeah, farming is not nearly as easy as it looks.

* Drivers who drive on the left hand side of the road (Britons, Australians, Japanese, Indians) and people who drive on the right hand side of the road (Americans, Canadians, Continental Europeans, Chinese) use the same fundamental driving skills but in a different manner. Which gets hilarious when you suddenly think you're driving on the wrong side of the road, reach on the wrong side for the gear stick if driving a manual transmission from the other side, or best of all, look the wrong way at intersections for oncoming traffic.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Acceptable Breaks From Reality]]

[[Category:Action Adventure Tropes]]