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"Welcome to the country's most disturbing car show."
Andrew Younghusband, opening season 5.

A Canadian Reality Show which focuses on rehabilitating the worst drivers in Canada, as nominated by their friends and family members. The object of the show is essentially to learn enough about proper driving to "graduate" from rehab, done in the form of different challenges meant to build specific driving skills. In other words, you don't want to move on to the next round. The "winner" (or should we say loser) in the end is crowned the titular "worst driver", and often receives an equally crappy looking trophy.

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. And two contestants (Emily of Season 4 and Flora of Season 8) were both. They're no worse than the other contestants (unless, of course, that person "wins"). The show started in September 2005. Season 9 was retitled Canada's Worst Driver Ever, and brought back "winners" and runners-up from earlier seasons for a "who's the worst" competition; the show returned to its usual title and a new crop of bad drivers with Season 10.

In certain regionsnote , you can now see two seasons of the show, Season 8 and Season 9 (Worst Driver Ever) on Netflix and certain seasons, (season 10 at least) have been uploaded to YouTube by the producers themselves.

Season 14 premiered on October 29, 2018. On May 21, 2019, it was announced by host Andrew Younghusband via his personal Facebook page that the previously aired fourteenth season of Canada's Worst Driver had been the last, and that the show would not be renewed for a fifteenth season. No reason was given for the show's cancellation.


This series provides examples of

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    Tropes #-D 
  • 13 Is Unlucky: It might as well be by the time the show had gotten to that many seasons, though Andrew manages to drill it in season 13's opening segments.
  • Accidental Aiming Skills: Dale's erratically-steered but perfect run on "The Eye Of The Needle" in Ever.
  • An Aesop:
    • The show's premise is to try and make bad drivers better, but sometimes there are drivers that show they are unable to drive at all whether due to medical reasons, mental/emotional problems, or just being unable to drive at all. By the fourteen seasons so far, at least 5 nominees have given up driving (three gave up willingly, one was willing to in the beginning only to be forced when he tried to weasel out of the deal, and one was forced to give up driving due to failing a medical driving review).
    • The show has an entire course dedicated to an aesop about distracted driving, which by the time of Season 14 is the cause of nearly a quarter of all Canadian auto accidents—even more than drunk driving. Andrew takes it up to eleven at the start of that season's fourth episode, bluntly and humorlessly calling anyone who obsesses over their cellphone while driving—even after having accidents caused by being distracted by their cellphones—a "sociopath".
  • Agony of the Feet: In Season 4, Lindsay cuts one of her toes wearing poor driving shoes.
  • The Alleged Car: Any car used during the course of the show will inevitably end up like this:
    • A Honda Prelude didn't fare well in the Parking Cross in Season 3.
    • Season 4 featured a pristine and vintage late 1980s Jaguar XJ6 getting the bad treatment also in the Parking Cross.
    • Season 5 had a beautiful Rolls Royce, which was soon destroyed by the bad drivers in a simple drive-in-a-straight-line challenge (with concrete barriers at public roadway lane width).
      • One for the contestants: Mike Butt bought these exclusively.
    • Beginning in season 6, each season now has a "flagship" vehicle (typically a sports car that is either new or relatively recent) that is used across multiple challenges ... well, that is, if it still functions correctly. Said season managed to turn a nice new 2010 Chevrolet Camaro into an Alleged Car; at least it still ran well. A Chevrolet Monte Carlo also suffered.
    • Season 7 had the same happen to a used Dodge Challenger painted in a Canadian flag scheme. You can guess what happened to the motif. It got so bad, that they gave it a burial service during the season finale! Shirley all but ripped the right-side panel off the Dodge Omni in the Parking Cross.
    • Season 8 used a sky-blue Ford Mustang GT as the recurring vehicle. The season premiere revealed the state the car was in when the filming for that season concluded; it got so bad that they had to use another Mustang for the final drive.
    • Ever used another Camaro; its state at the end of the season was teased in the first episode, and it wasn't pretty.
    • Season 10 featured a red Cadillac CTS-V Coupe; "We bought it used for only $60,000!" It got mangled up so bad that, in episode seven, it could no longer even start and was replaced by a Mustang for episode seven's Icy Corner and the Mega-Challenge.
    • Season 11 featured a Dodge Charger that, by the end of the third episode, had already lost its front and rear bumpers, one of the front headlamps, and the driver-side wing mirror. Seemingly learning from the previous year's experience, they had the Charge sit out the penultimate episode to increase the chances of it surviving until the Mega-Challenge.
    • Season 12 has an RV! Actually, no. Another Mustang.
    • After getting a bunch of letters from fans, Andrew reveals that Season 13 will have the nominees use RC Cars. Sorry, it's a 2017 Camero with a rear-end camera!
    • Season 14 brought in yet another Mustang.
  • The Alcoholic: Since her appearance on Season 5, Angelina had deteriorated into this, showing up hungover twice, and eventually being booked into a two-month session at a psychiatric clinic. In season 12, Tyler regularly drinks and drives. Tyler's wife Jana reveals that Tyler suffered a brain injury during a car crash (he was carrying scaffolding in his car, and the scaffolding hit his head during the crash). The brain injury led to problems controlling his temper and learning new things. Tyler had been using alcohol to "slow down" his brain so he wouldn't get angry.
  • And There Was Much Rejoicing: During Colin's expulsion in Season 2, many of the contestants and their nominators were happy to see him get kicked off, with one of them emitting a soft "woo hoo". This would be confirmed with Confession Cam clips done after that event.
  • Anticlimax: In the penultimate episode of Season 10, all the drivers did horribly, with only one challenge pass apiece from Jason and Tyler (and in the latter's case, only because of the judges being flexible in their definition of a "pass"). At the graduation ceremony, Andrew announces in as grandiose a fashion as possible that since it's the show's landmark tenth season, an epic, four-person finale... will not be happening, and Tyler is that episode's graduate.
  • Apathetic Student: Season 13's Melanie is a particularly noteworthy example.
  • Appeal to Authority: Some of the worst drivers have used this as a defense against the show, saying that they can't be bad because their respective provincial Ministries of Transportation gave them licenses in the first place. A recurring theme in the show is that there are bad drivers who somehow slip through the cracks and get licenses when they shouldn't; in Donna's case, they tell the authorities about her heart condition, who then review and revoke her license.
  • Artistic License – Biology: In Season 8, much is made of one-eyed Kevin only having half of his vision, with an intro to one challenge stating that having one eye is like not being able to see half your car. In fact, losing an eye will impede depth perception and remove peripheral vision on the affected side, but only reduces your field of vision by about 20%.
  • Ascended Fanon (In-Universe):
    • During Season 2, the experts noted that Matt was a very good driver if only he were to stop distracting himself behind the wheel. To drive this point home, they made him drive in a closed course while performing tasks such as eating, putting in a CD, doing makeup, reading a book, making a phone call and so on. The lesson was so effective that not only did the other contestants do this course the episode after Matt left, it was used in all subsequent seasons to drive the point home of not driving while distracted. Season 7 took this up to eleven with the drivers having to talk to Aaron (a previous victim of distracted driving) and tell him what they learned and promise not to drive distracted again.
    • 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, Season 7 used over-sized curling rocks, Season 8 used a large "mini-putt" course, and Ever used a car-scaled hockey puck, net and plywood goalie.
  • Asian Drivers: Not that they're any worse than their fellow contestants.
    • David, Season 1's second last graduate.
    • Jason, Season 3 winner.
    • Emily, Season 4 runner-up.
    • Arun, Season 5's last graduate (who is from India, not the far east as per the stereotype).
    • Shelby, Season 3 runner-up might fit also.
    • Flora, Season 8 co-winner with Kevin.
    • Siham, Season 10 runner-up. (Also not from the far east, but still fits.)
    • Amrinder, Season 12 second graduate (Also from India).
  • Aside Comment: Andrew loves to give these whenever a contestant is doing a challenge particularly slowly, badly, or both.
  • Aside Glance: Jon gives one when Jennifer confuses left and right in the parallel parking a bus challenge.
  • Awesome, but Impractical: The handbrake turns and reverse flicks look cool and do serve to teach vehicle physics and provide a confidence boost to the timid students that can pull them off, but they're illegal to perform on public roads and will likely never be needed outside of the show itself.
  • Awesome Moment of Crowning: Getting your license back, actually. In particular, Aaron comes to mind. Winning the trophy... more like Sucky Moment of Dethroning—especially for Mike Butt and Jason Zhang, who gave up driving altogether.
  • Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other:
    • Season 1 sees Heather and Ernie occasionally spatting, with Ernie getting frustrated enough to periodically leave the car, but they end up reconciling.
    • Andy and Henrietta have a fight near the start of Season 2, with Andy making a disparaging remark about female drivers and Henrietta dumping a bottle of water on him in response, but Andy frequently supports Henrietta when challenges drive her to tears and it's clear how the two have stayed together for decades.
    • As expected from exes, Ed and Elizabeth in Season 3 have their fair amount of arguments and issues with each other, but as Ed's efforts improve, so does Elizabeth's support and their relationship.
  • Babies Make Everything Better: Shannon and Scott were both irresponsible drivers who totalled cars and racked up fines unless their kids are involved. For Shannon, getting pregnant was what convinced her to change her ways, while Scott is a very different driver when his son is in the car with him, only to go back to being horrible when his kid isn't around.
    • Alex from Season 11 is an example of Grandmas Make Everything Better. He admitted that he drove differently when his grandmother was in the car and this attitude resulted in him being among the first to graduate.
  • Backseat Driver: Sometimes, this show looks more like Canada's Worst PASSENGER. This trope goes to its Logical Extreme when said backseat driver grabs for the controls of the car (usually the wheel). Yes, there IS a law against that—specifically, a law that states that when a passenger grabs the wheel, the passenger assumes full responsibility for whatever they make the vehicle do note . When the show hires a relationship therapist, this is clearly a serious problem. In these cases, it's the nominator who needs to learn a lesson (specifically, to put a cork in it), as the nominee's driving skills invariably improve (or at least don't get any worse) without the nominator's "instructions".
    • Season 2 had three of them. Henrietta's nominator wasn't too bad about it, but Karen and Jodi's nominators practically ran over their spouses with dozens of orders in challenges that only lasted a few minutes.
    • With Season 5, this went straight to the realm of Domestic Abuse with Wil (who was indeed called "Canada's Worst Passenger" by Andrew) and Melissa. Andrew forced Wil to listen to a recording of himself. Wil was devastated.
    • Brad's wife Donna in Season 6 not only tended to be a distraction by constantly screaming during the high-speed challenges, but she also refused to let him do any of the thinking in the challenges and insisted on guiding him every step of the way, which actually prevented him from graduating at least twice since the experts didn't think Brad deserved the credit for his challenge passes. She did improve in the last episode, in which she stayed quiet in the road test, helping Brad become the final graduate.
    • While not as bad as some of the other examples here, Shirley's daughter Janis from Season 7 tended to be very distracting, constantly complaining about her mother's driving and also giving her bad advice during challenges. She did improve a little when the duo came back for Season 9, though they were only around for two episodes anyway.
    • Frank from Season 8 was another example, constantly berating his wife Flora while she was driving, giving her bad advice, and even yanking the wheel away from her during challenges. In this case, however, Flora's driving was just as bad with or without Frank present, leading to her being named the season's joint-worst.
    • From the same season, Margherita's nominator Cheryl was an unusual example in that she was actually too supportive of Margherita, and kept telling her that the experts were stupid and that she should carry on wearing heels and just drive the way she wanted to. This caused Cheryl to come within an inch of becoming the first nominator to be thrown off the show, but she was instead given a warning to improve her attitude, and then Margherita graduated the following episode, rendering the matter moot.
    • Yolanda in Season 9. She refused to participate in several challenges and cursed a blue streak at Michael after one of the few she did with him, even though he didn't do very badly on it. Similar behavior was repeated in the fourth episode, when she refused to ride with Michael through the Eye of the Needle, berated him from the sidelines, and then got upset that Andrew passed him. By that point, the experts and Michael agreed she was just a detriment to his progress.
      • Unlike others on this list, Yolanda was not the original nominator; she filled in while her husband - Michael's friend - dealt with medical problems. Everyone was relieved when her husband was able to return to the passenger seat midway through the season.
    • Siham began to tell her husband Wayne to shut up and let her drive over the course of Season 10, but she shouldn't have to tell him that multiple times over the same challenge.
  • Badass Biker: Paul from Season 6 and his nominator Tommy are the first to arrive at the rehab center on two, rather than four, wheels. Of course, Paul was sent to the show because he had a fear of driving 4-wheeled automobiles. He was an excellent rider otherwise, cruising through tests of sign knowledge and other basics, and was able to quickly overcome his fears of driving, becoming was the first graduate of the season. Fittingly, he also had the most magnificent facial hair of any contestant too! Tina from Season 11 is another example, but unlike Paul, she drove to the rehab centre and needed an attitude change more than anything.
  • Badass Driver: Some of the contestants think they're this—which is why they are mentioned under Drives Like Crazy. Some of the judges are this, including:
    • Season 1 had Kelley Williams, a race car driver.
    • Philippe Létourneau (high-performance instructor from season 3 onward), former race car driver and professional driving instructor.
    • Dr. Louisa Gembora (psychologist for seasons 4 and 5), who is a race car driver and psychologist.
    • Dr. Lauren Kennedy-Smith (psychologist for season 6), also a psychologist and race car driver.
    • Cam Wooley, former police officer, and all the training that goes with that.
    • With all the demonstrations he's done since the start of the series, Andrew may have become one himself. note 
      • He actually said as much during Season 10 and has noted several times that just working on the show has made him a much better driver.
  • Bad Liar: Colin deliberately drives through a wall of boxes hard enough to smash the windshield on the car he was driving, then says "Whoo, sweet." He then admits to Scott Marshall, in the passenger seat, that he'd done it on purpose, before claiming he blanked out. He claims this happens to him all the time, but when Sgt. Woolley suggests putting his licence up for a medical review, Colin tries to walk back the claim, saying it's never happened before.
  • Behind a Stick: Andrew in one episode jokingly pretends to take cover behind a sapling that's only about the width of a finger.
  • Belief Makes You Stupid: Played with in Season 7. Afiya tried to justify her dangerous habits by saying that angels were protecting her car. This became fodder for some of Andrew's narrations, but he and the experts never attacked her faith, instead, they focused on the need for her to develop better driving skills and habits.
    • Season 5's Father Giles is an example of Belief Makes You Slow. note 
    • Season 12's Diana takes this trope up to eleven, with her reading religious books, burning incense candles, writing strange symbols and reading off tarot cards while driving and also attempting to interpret road signs in terms of astrological symbolism for some strange reason.
  • Berserk Button:
    • Brad's mother was killed by a driver who was toying around. As a result, he hates drivers that do stuff like that. This led him to become extremely angry at Lance for cutting people off.
    • As expected of the show, all of the experts and Andrew Younghusband take a dim view of willful stupidity on the road. If you say something blatantly illegal or engage in such behavior on-screen, they will chew you out for it. Especially Cam Wooley, who is a retired police sergeant (and for a few seasons, was still active) and is often the harshest of the experts.
  • Beware the Nice Ones: Andrew is normally friendly to his students and a patient instructor...provided the student is actually attempting to improve. Clowning around will result in a royal chewing out at best. Colin found out what happens at worst when he got expelled.
  • Big Damn Kiss: Jakob and Stacey share one after he graduates.
  • 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 a more literal side of this trope when they had troubles fitting in the cars.
  • Big "WHAT?!": The reaction from Amy, Ashley, and Emily in Season 4 when Teagan was the graduate in the penultimate episode (many contestants thought he would end up in the final three). Emily didn't even want to hug Teagan before he left.
  • Blatant Lies: Colin spends most of his time on the show lying like a rug.
  • The Blind Leading the Blind: Any time the contestants are driving together, particularly in the group reverse challenge.
    • Occasionally also occurs when the challenge is beyond the skills of a nominator and the nominator is either too proud or too unaware to know this and offers advice anyway.
    • Season 5's night driving challenge begins with Jakob guessing his first turn and Arun and Mike following him.
    Guy: Why is everybody following us?
    Jakob: laughs I don't know. They definitely shouldn't because I definitely don't know where we're going.
  • Blind Without 'Em: Some contestants have a condition on their driver's license requiring them to wear adequate corrective lenses (such as glasses or contact lenses). The only time a point is made of this is when the contestant fails to do so - which is worryingly common.
    • Both Emily and Ken of Season 4 have vision problems. Emily has bad vision in her right eye, which was undiagnosed until the rehab center took everyone to see an optometrist (she kept complaining that she "couldn't see" after failing several challenges), while Ken turns out to be red-green colorblind.
    • Crystal from Season 5 has bad peripheral vision in her right eye and refused to wear glasses, DESPITE it being on her driver's license. Cam points out that she could've gotten into legal trouble for it if she got into a vehicle accident. They were able to convince her to see an optometrist and to wear contact lenses before a night-driving session (with swapped nominators) and she was able to spot a raccoon, impressing the others. Father Giles has almost no peripheral vision, only seeing the object until it was practically passing right in front of him.
    • Kevin from Season 8 is literally half blind even with his glasses: his right eye is glass.
    • Jason from Season 10 shows that, once you have your license, your vision doesn't need to retested until you turn 80. Since he got his license before his vision degraded, he has an incentive to not see an optometrist, since if he does, he'll likely be required to wear glasses while driving. Jason was finally convinced to wear glasses when driving after seeing an optometrist.
      • For comparison, most drivers in the US renew their licenses every 4-6 years (depending on the state) and must pass a vision test each renewal, where if they don't pass, they'll be referred to a vision specialist or be told to get it fixed by their personal optometrist.
    • Jordan from Season 11 also did need glasses (and had been aware of this since childhood) but refused to wear them (citing that he didn't want to look ugly). He eventually did get fitted out with a pair of very nice glasses (and realized that yes, you can look pretty wearing glasses) on the show and the improvement is very much noticeable.
    • In an inversion on this, Sholom from the same season has glasses and wears them on the show, but swapped out for contacts in the fifth episode claiming this will help his performance. His performance is actually worse without them!
    • Season 13's Travis was a variant. He owns and wears glasses, but the show sent him off to an optometrist who recommended he get larger lenses. Travis told the judges that this improved his peripheral vision.
  • Bollywood Nerd: Season 5's Arun is a mechanical engineer originally from India. Both his wife and Andrew make frequent mention of this.
  • Bond Gun Barrel: The intro skit for Season 14's "Eye of the Needle" used this, Andrew explained that with both guns and cars you need to look where you want the bullet or vehicle to go.
  • Breather Level: The Reverse Flick challenge, which even Andrew and the experts have commented is probably the easiest on the show. Season 12 had all the drivers pass this challenge, and it was also the sole challenge passed by Season 5's Angelina and Season 11's Sholom, who are statistically the show's two worst drivers.invoked
  • Bribing Your Way To A Driver's License: We're not kidding - Margherita from Season 8 did indeed bribe her instructor to let her pass.
  • Broken Treasure: The "hero car" of any given season will end up like this by the end of the season. Expect scratched paint, dented bodywork, missing bumpers and headlights, and occasionally a car will completely die.
  • Brutal Honesty: For the panel, Andrew and Cam refuse to mince words with contestants. S14's Darris as well, as he told Tim Danter he didn't like him to his face.
  • Butt-Monkey:
    • Angelina during the first three episodes of Ever. Shelby, who appeared in Season 3 before Angelina, didn't think she was even a real person until he had seen footage. Not only has Andrew mentioned his thoughts of Angelina being the Worst Driver Ever with all the highlights of why she was so bad, but even the other contestants have also gotten into this as well with various statements on her terrible driving. This was then subverted during the fourth episode when the judging panel determined that she was too mentally unstable to even be driving. Therapy sessions with Angelina concluded with her agreeing to a counselling program and leaving the show.
    • Following Angelina's departure, Sly largely took over the Butt-Monkey position, with the experts frequently slamming his driving (particularly his reversing) hard, and Andrew making little secret of his belief that Sly should have been the worst driver in his original season. After Dale was kicked out of rehab in the penultimate episode, Andrew and the experts felt it was a Foregone Conclusion that Sly would become Canada's Worst Driver Ever... only for Sly to actually turn in a flawless drive, while Kevin flopped spectacularly in his own final drive.
  • Camera Abuse: Cameras are sent flying several times a season. The producers seldom let the resulting footage go unaired.
    • The camera crew placing a camera in the slalom foam dummies during the assessment challenge of season 12, pretty much guaranteeing that someone will send it flying as Mike ended up doing.
  • Camp Gay: Season 11's Jordan, Kevin from Ever (a lot of crying), anytime a contestant arrives with his husband as nominator.
  • 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. note  Andrew will sometimes comment that these drivers are lucky to be alive.
    Andrew, on Colin, Season 2: Let's hope he loses his license before his life.
    • A special nod here to Season 14's Brandon. He's had a driver's license for ten months, and during that time has been in 35 accidents and totalled five cars.
  • Captain Oblivious/Cloud Cuckoolander/The Ditz: Some of the contestants are shockingly clueless. These are arguably the scariest type of bad driver. With some, you wonder if they're even aware they're driving.
    • Best exemplified by Dale, especially on Ever. Good grief!
    • Kevin was just as bad, as he insisted he was in the left turn lane when he wasn't (and turned right in front of a bus), failed to see a tractor-trailer rig, and simply didn't seem to notice anything going on around him.
    • Flora also baffled the experts and tied as "winner" with Kevin. Apart from being unable to remember driving techniques taught, she was unable to reverse at all, even in a straight line. In one challenge, Flora assumed that she did not need to steer when reversing, ploughing through the obstacles and becoming stuck. In the road test, she was almost as bad as Kevin, being unable to recognize lanes and stopping at every green light.
    • Chanie from Season 10 not only forgot driving maneuvers but during her final exam was unable to identify common road signs. (She had also "forgotten" to tell the show that while she's supposed to be taking medication for her focus issues, she'd gone off them because she didn't have time to get the prescription renewed. Andrew was not happy when he learned this after her road test.)
    • Polly from Season 11 seems to be teetering on this with at least one incident so far in each episode due to her falling square in this trope.
  • Car Meets House: Occasionally played straight by contestants in their experience.
    • In Season 4, which was held at a closed jail, there were numerous cases of Laundry Truck Meets Prison.
    • Dale managed to do this with a garage—specifically, she drove through the door. Not the doorway, the door, which was closed at the time.
    • Season 11 had a few cases of Car Meets Hangar (the contestants had to reverse a trailer into a hangar).
  • Casanova Wannabe: In addition to his crappy attitude toward rehab, Colin from Season 2 frequently tried hitting on fellow contestant Shannon and her nominator Sara, despite both making it clear they were completely uninterested in him. Needless to say, they were happy to see him kicked out.
  • Casual Danger Dialogue: The host at times. "When we come back, Father Giles nearly kills me."
  • Catchphrase:
    • "Look where you want to go" is perhaps the single most important lesson of the show, and this is repeated a lot. Andrew once stated that he should get a tattoo of the phrase.
    • After demonstrating each challenge (to prove that an average driver can do them), Andrew tells the camera, "Now, let's see how Canada's Worst Drivers do." Or "Can Canada's Worst Driver's [do X]? We're about to find out."
    • And after a particularly bad run, "[contestant name] might be Canada's Worst Driver." Or, for Season 9, "[contestant name] might be Canada's Worst Driver Ever."
    • This was actually invoked on a contestant in Season 1: David had a nasty tendency to scrape his car on any surface prompting Andrew to tell David to heed the advice of "if I hear metal scraping on metal, I will stop". When he improved his performance later on during the season, Andrew told David to repeat the Catchphrase Andrew gave him before he would be allowed to graduate. He did and promptly graduated from the show.
    • "Use your mirrors."
  • Cel Shading: The opening is presented like this.
  • Censor Box (Parodied): a stop sign appears over the contestants' mouth whenever they swear (along with accompanying bleep). Punk rocker Jakob from Season 5 got an anarchy symbol instead. The censor box also appears (repeatedly) if any swear words are displayed on a visible object (i.e. Tina's "If you don't like my driving" sign). It's also occasionally used for gestures, i.e., Flipping the Bird.
  • Cerebus Roller Coaster: The show has a serious point, but most of it is Played for Laughs. And if you think it's really funny—meet Aaron, or rather, what's left of him after a serious car crash. Photos of him in the hospital were in every episode of Season 7.
  • Central Theme: Almost every season has a theme for the challenges and obstacles. Some examples include:
    • Season 1: Winter Driving. The only season to be filmed during the winter.
    • Season 2: Summer Driving.
    • Season 3: Extreme Driving Maneuvers.
    • Season 4: Legal Consequences. This season was filmed at an old abandoned prison.
    • Season 5: Driver's Boot Camp. This season was filmed at a Canadian force base.
    • Season 6: High-performance driving.
    • Season 7: Canada.
    • Season 8: City driving.
    • Season 9 (Ever): "All-Star" season.
    • Season 10: 10th season anniversary.
    • Season 11 and 12: The dangers of speeding.
    • Season 13: 13 Is Unlucky. Also, once Joe and Julie graduated, it became looking at what causes fear of driving.
    • Season 14: Evolution of Driving: a focus on new technologies that have been introduced to vehicles over the years.
  • Character Development: Many of the drivers try to iron out their flaws.
  • Cheaters Never Prosper:
    • In the first season, Madalena decided she didn't want to go through all the trouble of actually carrying out the scavenger hunt challenge, and just got all the answers from locals in a bar. Not surprisingly, the experts told her that the actual point of the challenge was to navigate to the places where she could find that information herself.
    • On the "Swerve and Avoid" challenge on Ever, Dale claimed that she did in fact, go into the correct lane by the car in the other lane. She guessed. This has also been suggested in Ever with regards to Dale's injury in the penultimate leg as the judges appear to be convinced that she injured herself to avoid the title of Canada's Worst Driver Ever. It didn't work—she was brought back to face the possibility of still being named the worst.
    • Kevin failed the same challenge by guessing after screwing up his first two attempts.
  • Chekhov's Gun: In Season 10, Chanie gives Andrew her two Driver's Licenses. During the last episode, with Chanie named the Worst Driver of the season, Andrew proceeds to cut one of her licenses to Chanie's horror, only to reveal that having two Licenses is actually illegal and that he just saved her from a very expensive ticket, along with giving back her remaining license.
    • Somewhat predictable though, as previous contestants (and the show) noted that it is illegal to cut up a license. Dale only had a copy of her license cut; Kevin commented he would sue the show if they cut his; while other contestants cut up their own licenses. Knowing this, one could easily have called Andrew's bluff.
  • Cherry Tapping: The Water Tank Challenge course on Season 7 has a car that randomly backs up out of the row of parked vehicles. Of course, the point is to notice this, and smoothly slow to a stop. Guess what happens next.
  • Chroma Key: This visual technique is commonly used in the comic sequences with host Andrew, particularly in the openings of episodes.
  • Chronically Crashed Car: Every single car ON the show, and most that the drivers have used as well. Lampshaded by Michael in Ever. After looking at the Camaro before taking his turn at the assessment challenge, he commented that "[he]'d hoped to drive the flagship vehicle at least once before it got mangled."
  • Clip Show:
    • Season 1 has the aforementioned Canada's Worst Driver vs. The World special (which featured clips from international versions of the franchise).
    • Season 2 finished with a clip show focused on driving mistakes as presented by the "experts" - the season's bad drivers.
    • Season 3 was accompanied by a clip show detailing some of the top 101 problems on Canadian roads, as demonstrated by that season's contestants.
    • The premiere of Season 8 was preceded by the "U Asked!" special the night prior, which featured answers to frequently asked questions about the series.
    • Ever started with one to re-introduce the quote-unquote "all-stars" of the season.
  • Clothing Damage: An interesting variation. In Season 6, Lance started as dapper as could be. By the end of the season, he looked like a slob, wearing a torn wifebeater and some facial stubble.
  • Cloudcuckoolander: Ben is one big time.
  • Cluster F-Bomb:
    • Season 5's Mike has one when he gets spooked during a reverse slolom.
    • Diane gets to spout one-off right off the bat for Season 8 (censored, of course), getting bleeped more than 20 times in her 30-second driving intro. She's arguably the biggest potty-mouth of the Season 8 contestants. Azim from that same season is not too far behind her. Of course, they weren't the only ones to ever do so...
    • After Flora breaks the rear bumper off and almost rolls over the Mustang in the Eye of the Needle challenge, Andrew declares it necessary to do so as well.
    • Invoked intentionally by Andrew for an "If British Celebrity Chefs Taught Parallel Parking" sketch, with the obvious impression...
  • The Cobbler's Children Have No Shoes:
    • Season 5: Mike Butt's father is a driving instructor, and Arun had serious trouble figuring out how a stick shift works... despite being a mechanical engineer and having owned a stick-shift back in India.
    • Season 6: Dale (runner-up) had an extensive history of ignoring traffic rules and bumping things, despite her husband being also a driving instructor. Lance and Brad both own stick-shift, while Dean drove one back in Zimbabwe, but all three burn out 4 clutches (Lance killed two - the first one he kept trying to get into first gear, despite it being already in gear).
    • Ian of Season 10 is a taxi cab driver!
    • Alexis of Season 14 was nominated by the man who first taught her how to drive, driving instructor Gerry. She ended up being the runner up that season despite this.
  • Com Mons: The metallic rims often littered around certain challenges. They're loud when knocked over, and can cause some vehicular damage in certain scenarios.
  • Confession Cam: Done fittingly inside half of a car. Unlike other examples of the trope, it's also kept very much to a minimum with drivers commenting after challenges or big events and usually reflecting on their progress in that challenge (or their feelings after the event) instead of describing things before and during the event.
  • Continuity Cameo: Mariah made an appearance in an unaired clip of the season 12 finale before Krystal's public drive.
  • Convicted by Public Opinion: Basically, this happens once the show airs on Canadian TV, and the worst of the worst is rooted out. Only three drivers have suffered this fate which were Colin, Scott and Krystal.
  • Cool Car: Many challenges (often ones that require the use of speed and control) will often use fancy cars, mainly of the classic variety.
    • Beginning in Season 6, when Andrew claimed that viewers were telling them to stop using classic cars, they started buying new (well, almost new in most cases) ones instead! As each season's car is used across multiple challenges, it naturally became the Chew Toy for the contestants. The first of these was a new Chevrolet Camaro. You can guess what happened to it.
    • For Season 7, they bought a used 2009 Dodge Challenger R/T, customized with a Canadian flag paint job to go with the Canadian theme of the season
    • For Season 8, they brought in a Ford Mustang. They were hoping to use it as part of their Final Exam Finale, but given the poor condition the Mustang ended up in, they rented another for the exam. During that test, Kevin hit something with the rental, although we don't know what or how.
    • Ever used another Camaro.
    • Season 10 brings in a Cadillac, and then an 11th generation Thunderbird for the final drive.
    • Season 11 had a Dodge Charger.
    • Season 12 used a 2016 Ford Mustang GT.
    • Season 13 had another Camaro.
  • Cool Shades:
    • Matt from Season 2 almost always wears a set of aviator sunglasses.
    • Ashley from Season 4 has a set of Terminator-style sunglasses she occasionally wears.
  • Copycat Mockery: During Season 1's navigational challenge, Manuel and Alex imitate Andrew and Madalena, respectively. Alex is particularly vicious.
  • Creepy Crossdresser: During Amy's final drive in Season 4, Bob decides to play tourist by snapping lots of photos, including one of a man in a woman's dress.
    Bob: Is that a woman or a man? My God!!!
  • Crying Wolf: In season 2, Henrietta often said she wanted to quit the challenges and that she couldn't do it, so when she said she wanted to quit the final road test, Andrew didn't realize how stressed she was and encouraged her to continue.
  • Cryptically Unhelpful Answer: In Season 10, during the Swerve and Avoid challenge, Chanie does this when she responds to Andrew when he asks about wearing the right shoes:
    Andrew: You are wearing the correct footwear to complete this challenge, right?
    Chanie: I guess you have to find out at the finish line....
    Andrew: (shakes head in dumfounded confusion)
    • After this, Andrew already correctly guessed from Chanie's answer that she was wearing the wrong shoes as she starts the challenge:
    Andrew: There goes Chanie, in the wrong shoes....
  • Cue the Rain: Being filmed outdoors, sometimes a squall will kick up in the middle of a challenge.
    • Invoked in Season 1's parallel parking challenge, where the crew simulates a downpour by blasting the challenge car with a fire hose.
  • Damn You, Muscle Memory!: In Season 1, Faith-Ann prepares for a reversing challenge by moving her arm to the back of the passenger seat...only to smack it against the back window of the pickup truck they are in.
  • The Dandy: Lance. Season 11's Jordan might not have Lance's clothing budget, but does more primping behind the steering wheel than some of the female contestants.
  • Dark Horse Victory:
    • Season 7 had one, and not in a good way for the person involved. Before the final test, the experts and Andrew predicted that Sly would easily be Canada's Worst Driver, Aaron would only be the worst if the traumatic memories of his accident caused him to suffer a total Heroic BSoD, while Shirley would if anything do even better than usual without her Backseat Driver daughter in the car. In the event, however, Aaron did absolutely fine, and Sly also did relatively well, while Shirley racked up a whole host of moving violations and ended up being named the worst.
    • Kevin looked like he might pull this off in a good way in Ever — in the last episode, he was the only one to pass the reverse/forward slalom challenge, and he did better than the others (though still not well) at the mega-challenge. However, his road test (which is given the most weight by the judges) was just plain awful and he ended up as the worst.
    • Season 11 had a similar scenario to Season 7; Sholom was generally considered the favourite to be the worst going into the final episode, with Polly also a serious contender for the title, while Jillian seemed likely to have the season's "breakout drive" and finally vanquish her fear of driving. While Sholom did poorly in his final drive, and Polly even worse, Jillian proved unable to even attempt her final drive, which ended up causing her to be named the worst.
  • Deadpan Snarker: Andrew, Andrew, Andrew.
    Andrew: (standing while Dale is frantically stepping on the gas trying to get the vehicle out of a pit bog, splattering him in the process) I don't think this is working.
    • Jim-Bob, the nominator of Season 10's Santana, shows signs of this as well.
    Jim-Bob: (in response to Andrew's comment that the car Santana is in is worth $60,000) When she's done, it will be worth 60 dollars.
  • Death Glare: Cam does this a lot. Piss him off with some legally questionable driving (or even trying to justify it) and you are sure to get one of these. Given that he was a former traffic cop who probably has seen his share of destruction, it's not hard to wonder why.
  • Decided by One Vote: With only five 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), and sometimes no one can agree, so no one graduates.
    • Also Averted in the finale of Season 8 where Andrew (as the tiebreaker) cannot decide who is the worst driver, Flora or Kevin, with equally bad performances. They both end up "winning" the award.
    • And in the second-last episode of Ever, nobody graduated because all the experts agreed that Dale was not fit to drive and expelled her. Andrew even cut up (a copy of) her driver's license before kicking her out.
    • Also averted in the second episode of Season 11, where the panel is split between graduating Tina or Alex and decides in the end to let them both graduate.
  • Deconstructor Fleet: Of every bad driving trope out there. And also Loophole Abuse, Distracted by the Sexy, and Bribing Your Way to Victory (all used to get driver's licenses), Hair-Trigger Temper, Nervous Wreck, Cloud Cuckoo Lander, etc. etc. etc. The main tool for deconstruction? Surprisingly Realistic Outcome.
  • Defiant to the End:
    • Season 5's Angelina and Season 8's Flora and Kevin were adamant about not giving up driving despite their overall horrid driving. All three were named Canada's Worst Driver as a result.
    • Angelina herself subverted this in Ever when it was clear that she needed therapy for her issues, she agreed to therapy sessions arranged by the show and left.
    • Dale in Ever is the same way. After the expulsion mentioned above, Andrew instructed her nominator Danny to drive her home. Despite Dale having partially severed a finger tendon and her hand being bandaged to the point that she was physically incapable of driving, nobody trusted her not to try.
    • Krystal barely tried to correct her bad driving habits during season 12.
  • Destructive Romance: Ashley's complete inability to get on with her husband while driving caused her to be named Canada's Worst Driver in Season 4, despite runner-up Emily obviously being a far more inept driver overall. Jillian from Season 11 appears to be teetering on this with her blowing up at her husband repeatedly while driving.
  • Directionless Driver: Either sex.
  • Disappeared Dad: The reason for Mariah's constant laughing and drinking-driving early on in Season 10? Coping mechanism - her father walked out when she was 12 and she stopped expressing actual happiness.
  • Distracted by the Sexy: One contestant admitted to having sex while driving.
  • Don't Try This at Home: Some of the challenges, such as the J-turn, are good lessons in driving control, but are illegal on public roads. As such, the show reminds viewers to not do them.
  • Double Take: Tim Danter does one after Cam says that one of the contestants could "be an instructor"
  • Downer Ending
    • Donna from Season 4 turned out to have a heart ailment and had to leave the show.
    • Crystal from Season 5 was permitted to leave after her brother-in-law was killed in a driving accident.
    • Angelina from Ever had to leave the show after it was determined that she had a mental condition and the show arranged for therapy sessions for her.
    • Karlene from season 14 looked like she was on track to be the next graduate in the first half of the sixth episode, but took a turn for the worse in the second half. When offered her license back on the condition of one last lesson, she took it...but her final interview and following letter spit it back in the show's face.
  • Dramatically Missing the Point: Krystal fails to understand several important safety lessons. She's pretty much the only person to not get after the distracted driving challenge that driving distracted is dangerous.
  • Dream-Crushing Handicap: Attempted on a couple of contestants who had serious medical problems.
    • Sorry, Donna, but you have a heart condition (Season 4). She refused to give up driving, but her license was put up for medical review (and she lost).
    • Sorry, Kevin, but you're half-blind - he simply refused to turn his head to compensate. He, too, refused to give up driving, and tied for Canada's Worst Driver in Season 8 before winning it by himself in Ever.
    • Aaron teetered on this in Season 7, but eventually proved himself a good driver.
    • Angelina not being able to medicate her psychological issues properly more or less further impaired her bad driving skills in Ever. Add onto the fact that she required anxiety medication during her final drive in Season 5.
    • Mike averted this in season 12. Tyler also had a permanent brain injury that went unrevealed for more than half the season, but he also graduated.
  • Drives Like Crazy: Seriously, what part of "Canada's Worst Driver" do you not understand? At least two in every season, and waaaaaaaaayyyyyyyy too many to count these days.
  • Driving Stick: Stick shifts are brought frequently. This trope is played as straight as you please every time, with ground gears, burned clutches, and the works.
    • That being said, some drivers have had no problems. The most recent subversion was Badass Biker note  Paul from Season 6, who completed a challenge involving balancing a stick-shift car on a teeter-totter almost as quickly as Andrew did and with not a lick more damage to the car.
      Paul: (from almost completely level car) How's that?
      Andrew (narrating): "That" is perfect!
    • On the other hand, everyone else did so bad that all five of the cars they brought out for the challenge had their clutches burned out — the last person had to be exempted because they didn't have a sixth!
    • Perhaps this is why there was no manual transmission challenge in Season 7. The manual transmission teeter-totter did return for Season 8, however. Only one car had a confirmed clutch burn this time around, but someone else popped a tire, and most of their performances left much to be desired. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this was dropped again for all subsequent seasons.
    • Jason in Season 10 does this in an automatic on the road test.
  • Driving Test: The last challenge is a public drive administered by Andrew, and it's the one that largely decides who is Canada's Worst Driver. Tim has also started doing this in Season 11, taking the contestants on small public drives done in the Driving Test style, to check on their progress.
  • Drunk Driver: Sadly, some of the contestants have indeed done this before going on the show, and in some cases have been completely unapologetic about it (Donna from Season 4 and Scott from Season 6 being the biggest examples). Fortunately, no-one has actually been insane enough to drink and drive while in rehab... though Angelina has skirted it, being visibly hungover at least twice in Ever. In fact, in the first episode, Angelina is too hungover to even drive to the rehab center, and instead sleeps in the back seat while Chris drives. Thankfully, Chris had become a competent driver since Season 1. Mariah from Season 10 is a confessed drunk driver, and Andrew is pretty rough on her for not taking it seriously.
    • Mariah promised Andrew that when she left rehab, she would get an anti-drunk driving tattoo. When she graduated, the show brought her tattoo artist to the center to do the work.
    • Tina even drunk-drove on the day they were shooting her introduction video for the show and drunk before she left for rehab. Andrew was not amused when he found this out.
    • Tyler from Season 12 is also a drunk driver and is called out by everyone on the show by it. He eventually cleaned up his act and became the final graduate that season.
  • Duct Tape for Everything:
    • In Season 4, Bob uses duct tape to reattach a loose bumper.
  • Dude, Not Funny!: In-Universe examples:
    • 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 at Ken. After Ken continues to show off while pulling up to the rehab centre, Andrew orders him out of the car before he can park it.
      Andrew: I don't want to see you park. You drive like an ass. Get out.
    • In Season 6, Scott found his own bad driving amusing. Danny, his nominator and the guy who paid for Scott's insurance, didn't, and his disgust is quite visible. In the second episode, Danny finally got fed up, tore Scott a new one and cancelled the insurance policy. This meant Scott was no longer a valid driver, which caused him to be expelled from the show—the first (and so far only) time that a contestant has been effectively expelled by his own nominator.
    • Later during the same season, Dale's idea of a joke was to attempt to run Andrew over. This got her a real yelling at from Andrew and her nominator, and she unbelievably tried to accuse them of having no sense of humor over the issue (though she later apologized for her actions).
    • A subversion: Season 5's Crystal stopped finding her own driving habits funny after her brother-in-law Tom Stagno died in a traffic accident.
    • Season 8's Klyne tends to hit a lot of things, with his mother Maureen (also his nominator) giggling throughout the entire process. During the Bus Reverse Challenge, Maureen kept cheering him on and giggling while Klyne was trashing the course. Andrew was not happy and called Maureen an enabler for Klyne's bad driving habits. When she gave him a 10 "for effort", Andrew chewed her out royally.
    • Mariah's constant laughing at her drunk driving in Season 10 prompted Andrew to chew her out, saying that there are viewers who have had friends and family die in car accidents.
    • Chanie, after an abysmal final challenge, joked about exchanging a hug for a pass from Andrew. Andrew was not amused and tore her a new one about trying to flirt her way out of trouble.
    • Krystal got a very brutal chewing out by Andrew because of her terrible driving, and Andrew called her a "selfish idiot" because of how bad her driving is.
      • It later got to this point again in the final episode when she openly laughed and mocked Daniella's performance in the first challenge, causing everyone to chew her out for it, and Steven (her nominator) to disappear for the rest of the episode (see Screw This, I'm Out of Here! below for more detail).
  • Due to the Dead: The episode in which Crystal learned of her brother-in-law Tom Stagno's death was dedicated to the deceased, and the credits were silent.
  • Dumb Blonde: Just about anyone with fair hair can qualify, but especially Angelina, the Season 5 champion. Dale, from Season 6, thought a sign forbade a U-turn. She was being shown a sign that meant "Tourist Information Ahead", which is a brown sign with a question mark — which she then thought represented a road and the dot at the end was the actual information center. Both Angelina and Dale are back for Ever, and so far, with Angelina shipped off to rehab, Dale appears to be taking the cake on Dumb Blonde drivers.
  • Dumbass No More: While many of the drivers aren't stupid, this is pretty much the point of the show.
    • Chris Ferguson, who was the first "winner" of the Unwanted Title, was the first graduate of the 9th season—and he was so good in his assessment he didn't even go through to the second episode.
    • After she "won", Shirley Sampson went on a mission to improve her skills: she read the Nova Scotia driver's handbook cover to cover, had her husband set up practice courses, and took private driving lessons. Her study and practice led to her becoming the second graduate of the Ever season. Of note was her "Rules of the Road" challenge—in Season Seven, she only knew one out of ten signs. The second time, she was correct for an impressive eight.

    Tropes E-M 
  • Earn Your Happy Ending: Invoked. You have to work at improving to graduate.
  • Early-Installment Weirdness:
    • Two things stand out for Season 1: First, it was held during the winter, not the summer. Second, no Cam Woolley, who joined during Season 2 and has been there ever since. Season 3 added Philippe Létourneau as an expert and was the first season where the bad drivers' licenses were confiscated instead of their keys.note 
    • During Season 1, the Water Tank Challenge was scored based on time to run the course. Every other season, it's based on how much water the bad drivers dump on themselves during the challenge.
    • Season One is also the only season to have the road test take place outside of Ontario, in this case being Montreal
    • In earlier seasons, in addition to the trophy, the "winner" would also be made to catch a plane or taxi back to their hometown, while their car was towed back there. In Season 7 the producers decided not to put Shirley through this, as everyone involved agreed that Sly was the season's actual worst, and then in Season 8 both Flora and Kevin got named the worst, meaning it wasn't practical to tow both of their cars. The towing was quietly dropped thereafter, and the "winner" instead driven away by their nominator.
    • Season 3 had Marnie allowed into rehabilitation despite only having a beginner's license. An Obvious Rule Patch was put in place to prevent this for later seasons, as we found out with Travis in Season 13
    • The first five seasons took place in four different locations, including a military base and an inactive prison. From Season 6 onward, it would take place exclusively in the Dunnville airport, with the road test being in nearby Hamilton
  • Easily Forgiven: Dale after she chases Andrew with a car simply apologizes and nothing more is made of the issue, even though she essentially committed vehicular assault.
  • Ending Memorial Service: In Season 7, the desperately broken Challenger got one.
  • Epic Fail: So much on this show, it has its own subpage!
  • "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. He did: although he got soaked, he didn't collide with anything.
  • Exactly What It Says on the Tin: "The Longest Reversing Challenge Ever". The drivers have to reverse for a full kilometre, which as the name suggests makes it the longest reversing challenge they've ever done on the show.
  • Exact Words: Kevin's promise in Ever was that if he was named Canada's Worst Driver Ever, he would destroy his license and sell his car. He did both. However, he also did get a new car after the show was done taping...
  • Failed a Spot Check: For some of the bad drivers, not seeing what's going on around them makes them terrible drivers. What's worse, it tends to show up during public drives since that's where the drivers have to be the most attentive. Some of them seem to border on Captain Oblivious.
    • Michael needed to make a U-turn, and didn't see the U-turn lane next to him; he also didn't see the car in the next lane when trying to lane change.
    • Jason often complained about this, he can't understand how anyone can see all the signs on the road.
    • Mike Butt failed to spot a pedestrian when he was about to take off from an intersection. Andrew didn't fail that spot check, and this near mistake is what convinced Mike Butt to cut up his license.
    • Kevin may have been half-blind, but during the final exam, Andrew noticed that he wasn't turning his head; he wasn't just half-blind, he did not attempt to compensate for it. When he returned for Ever, during the initial drive, he nearly got hit by a truck he somehow did not see. (The truck in question was a tractor-trailer rig, which are the largest vehicles on the roadnote . This isn't just failing a spot check, this was rolling a 1 on a spot check.)
    Lenny: Watch out for that truck.
    Kevin: What truck? (Truck Horn blares as it makes a left turn in front of Kevin) Oh. That truck.
    • Season 10's Siham, the judges, and Andrew all agreed: if Andrew hadn't yelled "Stop!", Siham would have been in a serious accident during her final road drive.
    • Jason, also from Season 10, was called "blind" by almost everyone who knew him before the show. When he started missing several very obvious obstacles, Andrew started giving him several impromptu vision test. It later turns out that Jason had been steadily losing his vision and, when tested by an optometrist, was legally blind enough that he must wear prescription glasses while driving.
  • First Gray Hair: During the Premiere episode for the Worst Driver Ever season, Andrew discusses his hair going gray during the final drives with the prior Worst Contestants. He lampshades this again in Season 10 while discussing how he has been doing this for 10 years, and how young he looked when he first started hosting the show.
  • Flatline: The final episode of Season 13 opens with Andrew "operating" on the Camaro that was the hero car for the season, with it supposedly hooked up to the electrocardiogram. Despite his best efforts with the jumper cables ("Don't you do this to me!"), it flatlines.
    Andrew: Nurse, I'm gonna call it. This 2017 Camaro SS is dead.
  • Flawless Victory:
    • Arun (Season 5), Diane (Season 8), and Brittany (Season 14) completed their Final Exam Finale road tests without any infractions and drawing praise from the judging panel, their status as the final graduate all but assured.
    • Chris Ferguson on Ever nearly had this, he only lightly bumped a concrete barrier during the assessment challenge, but his performance was far better than anyone else on that course. It earned him the title of the first graduate of that season.
    • Thomas from season 3, kind of. He only failed one challenge on the show (aside from the assessment, which is never passed) because he refused to take Philippe's driving lesson. Technically, he did complete every challenge when on the show and was the second to graduate, only failing to graduate first due to his attitude.
    • Curt from Season 4 and JoJo from Season 5 both graduated in the second episode of their respective seasons while passing every challenge they attempted on the show.
    • Not a true victory, but Sly managed to perform his Final Exam Finale in Ever without a single infraction or mistake, aside from Andrew's comment on his shoulder-check technique. He didn't graduate, though, as he still failed more challenges than any other nominee. (Again).
    • Cameron and Shmuel from Season 11 both managed to pass all three challenges in their graduation episodes without any major flaws.
    • Tyler from Season 12 nearly did perfect on the mega challenge (he accidentally hit a rim during the Precision Driving challenge), but is considered this compared to how Daniella and Krystal did their challenges.
  • Foregone Conclusion:
    • Most fans generally agreed by the finale that Krystal from Season 12 was already predicted to be Canada's Worst Driver as early as Episode 2, some say even Episode 1.
    • At least a couple of times, one of the drivers did so well throughout an episode that during the deliberation at the end, Andrew and the rest of the experts would agree that they didn't even really need to discuss who was going home. One example was Paul in the fourth episode of the sixth season, who had done extremely well in both that and the previous episode and, in fact, had only not graduated in the previous episode because he had said during his discussion with them that he didn't want to graduate yet.
  • Foreshadowing: When Andrew is re-introducing the bad drivers at the beginning of one Season 5 episode, he makes a point of talking about how motorcyclists or bikers would fare around most of them. At the end of that episode, Crystal finds out her brother-in-law was riding his motorcycle when he was hit and killed by a bad driver.
  • Freak Out: About one contestant a season spends most of their time in rehab screaming.
    • Ashley from Season 4 is likened to a scream queen from a horror movie.
    • Angelina from Season 5 also is known to frequently scream her way through challenges.
  • Friend to All Living Things: Lauri from Season 7 ... when it's not affecting her performance of course! (She was shown driving with a car filled with additional "passengers", mainly pets.)
    • Manuel from Season 1 fawns over the alpacas at the waypoint farm on the drive to the rehab center and in the country drive challenge immediately stops his car and puts it in park to let the sheep pass him safely.
  • From Bad to Worse: The show originally was just about improving poor driving, but it has become clear over the years that with very poor drivers, lack of skill or experience is only one of the issues. Andrew et al. have had to contend with marital problems, parenting problems, abusive relationships, criminal activity, and physical, mental and developmental disabilities (in some cases undiagnosed before appearing on the show).
    • In Ever, two of the contestants who came back to try to improve their driving were eventually shown to have serious mental issues that either hadn't been diagnosed at all or hadn't been properly dealt with and which naturally hindered them behind the wheel. Two of the "bottom three" also have known physical or developmental issues that interfere with their driving ability, meaning nearly 50% of the Ever cast has serious issues beyond lack of skill or experience which affect their driving.
  • Full-Name Basis: Mike Butt was the only candidate who was consistently referred to by his full name on the show.
  • Genius Ditz:
    • Arun from Season 5, who was a mechanical engineer—but on this show for a reason.
    • Michael from Season 2 and Ever clearly understood the physics behind the challenges; he just had problems applying his knowledge behind the wheel.
    • Sly from Season 7 and Ever. He proved one of the rehab center's worst drivers when it came to challenge performance. Only one quality saved him from the unwanted title in both seasons: actually being a decent public driver when he isn't distracted.
  • Genre Savvy: Some drivers and nominators show up for the Water Tank Challenge wearing shower caps or rain hats.
  • Gentleman Snarker: Michael Telford fits this perfectly.
    Michael: (responding to a motorist saying he sucked at driving in Ever) Perhaps... but I'm still in a Corvette!
  • Ghost Town: Season 3 was held in Edgar, a ghost town in Ontario.
  • Gilligan Cut:
    • In Season 8, Andrew made it clear there could not be a tie. After the commercial break, who wins the trophy: Flora or Kevin? Both.
    • Following Shmuel's disastrous Swerve-and-Avoid run in Season 11, Andrew's voiceover says that he couldn't have done the challenge any worse. Cut to a preview of Polly's performance after the next commercial break, demonstrating that yes, Shmuel's performance could have been way worse.
  • Going Commando: One nominee makes the mistake of doing this and wearing white pants on the day of the water tank challenge.
  • Golden Snitch: The final public drive, as it is a true test of the drivers' ability in real-life everyday driving, typically decides who is the final graduate—and naturally who is the Worst Driver.
  • Good Angel, Bad Angel: In Season 12, before the distracted driving demonstration, Andrew is presented with a red devil version of himself on one shoulder and a white angel version on the other. The red devil says that he talks on his cellphone while driving all the time but is a good driver. The white angel says that he knows that even hands-free devices pose too much of a distraction, while the devil starts sending texts and taking selfies.
    Andrew: Would you stop doing that?
  • Gosh Dang It to Heck!:
    • Chris from Season 1 had "son of a motherless goat!"
    • Shelby from Season 3 and Ever tended to use "Aw, Flip." Lampshaded when he said "I kicked ass! I never swear though."
    • Father Giles from Season 5, whose spiciest language was "Holy Smokes!"
    • Sly from Season 7 and Ever would always yell out "Freak!" whenever he screwed up.
    • During the Re-Assessment Challenge for Ever, Henrietta said "Son of a B note " after hitting an obstacle.
  • Hair-Trigger Temper: Some drivers have absolutely no control over their road rage.
    • Ed from Season 3 has trouble managing his anger.
    • Krystal from Season 12 gets angry from just trying to adjust her car mirrors.
    • Brandon from Season 14 exploded in rage at the slightest impediment or failure.
  • Hard Work Hardly Works: Completely averted in the show - hard work is what gets you to graduate.
    • The best example was Shirley Sampson, who went on a mission to become a better driver after making a fool of herself in Season 7. In Ever, her study of road signs got her 8 out of 10, she knew enough to watch her wheels on the "Know Where Your Wheels Are" challenge, and she only needed a quick refresher on the S-Turn challenge, which she performed without knocking anything over. She was the second graduate. Diane in Season 8 is praised for being the model student, refusing to leave rehab until she was confident enough to ace her final road test in the last episode. Chris from Season 1 passed just based on the Assessment Run in Ever.
    • In season 10 this aversion actually prevented someone from graduating, as it's revealed that the driving instructor actually takes people on lessons on real roads off-camera, where he assesses their overall development. While normally a Graduation is solely dependent on the Challenge Performances, this time it's deemed that while the driver performed the best (albeit rather marginally than the other potential graduate), Siham did not show this same consistent performance on a real road, and thus did not graduate.
    • In season 12, Daniella did very poorly while learning to back up a trailer, so she Googled videos of trailer reversal so she would avoid making a fool of herself during the challenge—which was parking a trailer in a garage. It worked—she parked the trailer on her first try, avoiding looking like a fool.
  • Heal It with Booze/Drowning My Sorrows: Angelina tried to medicate her anxiety problems with alcohol (and other people's prescription meds). It did not work.
    • This turned out to be the reason Tyler of season 12 drank — he'd gotten a permanent brain injury from a bad traffic accident, and the alcohol slowed his brain down so his temper wouldn't rise.
  • Henpecked Husband:
    • Brad from season 6 was constantly picked on by his wife Donna.
    • Jillian from Season 11 also frequently harasses her fiance Mitchell.
  • Heroic BSoD: Tim Danter seems to do this a lot when he sees rather horrible driving and people not paying attention to his tips during his lessons on the challenges.
  • Hidden Depths:
    • While Season 12's Krystal is very much a terrible driver due to her attitude and tendency to get distracted by her phone, she does display an impressive aptitude for the challenges when she drops her attitude, puts away her phone, and actually does focus. Unfortunately, she never realized that, leading to her being named that season's worst driver.
    • Mike in the same season actually had much faster reaction times than Andrew originally gave him credit for, and was noted to have passed the most high-speed challenges.
  • Hope Spot: During Season 10's timed reversing challenge, Chanie fails her first nine attempts, then finally manages a clean run on her final attempt...only to be told she was two seconds too short.
  • How Dare You Die on Me!: In the final episode of the 13th season, there's a skit in which host Andrew "operates" on the hero car for the season, which has been badly damaged by the bad drivers. He shouts "Don't you do this to me!" and tries to revive it with jumper cables, but it flatlines.
  • 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 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.
  • I Broke a Nail: Angelina after the assessment challenge in Season 5.
  • I Resemble That Remark!: Michael's nominator Eric actually said this word-for-word in Ever, after Michael commented about the "loose standards of sanity on this show."
  • In Harm's Way:
    • Andrew Younghusband, though he hasn't gotten hurt by the drivers yet (though he did hurt himself once). In Ever, this trope was played disturbingly straight when Kevin's final road test became increasingly dangerous, and narrowly avoided a collision, causing Andrew to make Kevin stop the test, fearing for his own safety.
    • On the final drive in season 3, Jason Zhang stopped on a merge lane on Highway 400, one of the most dangerous highways in Canada.
    • Shirley of season 7 also stopped on a merge lane and kept waffling between staying on the highway and the exit ramp, stopping again. Cam is completely gobsmacked.
  • Insane Troll Logic: Scarily some of the really bad drivers operate under this.
    • Season 5's Arun thought that driving in two lanes was the safe choice.
    • Lance's "reasoning" as to why he thinks a circle is 365 degrees in Season 6.
    • After accomplishing the Snowplow Challenge at a higher speed than told to, Sly in Season 7 had this to say:
    Sly: "The faster you go, the easier it is to steer."
    Andrew: *Beat, then nearly pulls a Face Fault* "Oh, you're killing me. THAT'S what you learned from that?"
    • Season 8's Kevin thinks that people who got named as "Canada's Worst Driver" and voluntarily give up driving are stupid. Cue dumbfounded stares from Philippe, Cam and Andrew (more of a glare from Cam).
    Kevin: I mean, they're basically saying "Oh, I give up. Just take my license." and get the hell out of here.
    Andrew: That's correct. That's exactly what they're saying, and I don't think that makes them stupid. I think it makes them safer Canadians and probably saves lives.
    Kevin: Nooo, I don't think so.
    Andrew: *Beat* Your logic defies... understanding, my friend.
    • In Ever, Kevin and Sly show that they still tend to operate under this logic. Dale's explanation of why she left the center without telling anyone and how she wounded her hand in the same season practically combines this with "I Reject Your Reality" logic.
    • Sholom seems to practically run off of this!
  • 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. 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 and wasn't certain if he'd be able to drive anymore. Andrew later said he was the most effective teacher the rehab center ever had—have a look under In-Universe Tear Jerkers for the rest of that story.
  • Insult to Rocks: During the second episode of Ever, Shirley accused her daughter Janis - one of the show's most notoriously annoying Backseat Drivers - of being "worse than Angelina" when she was freaking out during a challenge which Shirley ultimately became the only driver to successfully pass. Of course, Janis was greatly offended by this accusation.
  • Iris Out:
    • The final episode of Season 3 ends with one while the "Cool Bus" is driven away by Shelby (who is taking Jason home), followed by the words "The End" and the closing credits.
    • Season 4's final episode also ends with one while the "winner" Ashley and her husband Bryan are riding in their car on the back of a tow truck.
  • Irony: For Season 11 Sholom nominated Shmuel, but during Shmuel's audition run it came out Sholom is a bad driver himself, so not only did both brothers end up on the show, but Shmuel actually graduated before Sholom did.
  • It Amused Me: Why use a bus that looks like a train for The Cross in Season 11? Because it looked hilarious, that's why!
  • It's All About Me/Lack of Empathy: Some drivers are incredibly self-centred, treating driving like it's a right with no concern for others and not a privilege. Bob from Season 1, Ken and Ashley from Season 4 (resident psychologist Dr. Louisa Gembora outright said that Ken demonstrates Narcissistic Personality Disorder), Angelina from Season 5, Crystal from Season 5 laughed at hitting things (until the tragic death of her brother-in-law), Aafiya of Season 7, Margherita in Season 8, Kevin from 8 and Ever, Adam and George of Season 10, Jordan of Season 11 and Krystal of Season 12 are all classic examples.
  • It's Personal: Andrew had a teenage friend who was killed by a drunk driver, while Phillipe has said that the death of his brother is the main reason he teaches on the show.
  • Jaw Drop: The judges are notorious for this, especially Tim in Season 10 where every other shot of him was this after seeing the contestants hit things and destroy courses.
    • Andrew during Ever, when Dale actually completed the Eye of the Needle Challenge in a completely erratic way but managing to not hit a single obstacle.
  • Jerkass: Many a driver has initially fallen under this for their belligerent, and sometimes hostile attitude. As the season progresses most of these drivers eventually subvert this when they realize they genuinely want to be better drivers. The only two notable exceptions are Colin (Season 2) and Scott (Season 6). Notable in that they are good drivers, they just choose to drive poorly, and both were kicked off the show as a result.
    • Krystal was this BIG time in Season 12.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Jakob from Season 5 is initially reckless, but he does have a strong relationship with his girlfriend, his behavior is crass, but not mean-spirited, and he eventually does desire to improve and decides to stop behaving recklessly.
  • Karma Houdini:
    • Scott may never face charges for his literally criminal driving. However, see Laser-Guided Karma.
    • Colin has apparently never faced any legal ramifications for his multiple felonies, though he did get so much police attention afterwards that he sold his car. About the only other "punishment" is being known as "the loser kicked off Canada's Worst Driver" (more-or-less how he was referred to in a game show a few years later).
    • Krystal for Season 12 didn't get expelled in Episode 4 after cursing at the panel and flipping them off before leaving. It's revealed later on that Andrew and the panel didn't want to give up on her despite her attitude.
  • Killer Outfit: One of the many, many lessons of this show is do not wear high heels while driving! These shoes can become wedged under pedals and generally lessen pedal control. People who wear high-heels - and wedges - often end up having flats purchased for them for driving. Flip-flops and certain types of sandals that lack proper ankle support also highlight the risk of the foot slipping off of the pedals. Cam Wooley pointed out that the wrong driving shoes can be considered a contributing factor to an accident.
    • Downplayed when the drivers take their shoes off entirely. While sometimes discouraged, it's usually left uncommented on outside of the occasional joke as it isn't illegal to do so in Canada. Philippe even encourages it when Descyara went shoeless in the Season 14 teeter-totter challenge.
    • Taken quite literally with Lindsey in Season 4, who ends up cutting her toe during her attempt on the uphill challenge because of her flip-flops.
    • Sly in Season 7 gets pointed out by the driving instructor that his sandals weren't such a good idea while practising parallel parking.
    • When Diane from Season 8 said she never wore high heels because she couldn't feel the pedals, Andrew praised her for having the right idea for the right reason. Margherita's wedges didn't allow her to complete a good number of challenges.
    • This is what precisely happened to Angelina during some of the challenges in season 5 and the assessment course on Ever. Her wedge shoes got stuck beneath the pedals and she lost control during the slalom in Ever.
    • Chanie's wedges in Season 10 again highlights the dangers of wearing the wrong foot-wear when driving after she failed the Eye of the Needle challenge.
    • Shmuel from Season 11 is also called out for this (he was wearing sandals)
    • During Season 14's distracted driving challenge, Alexis tops every other example by quite literally changing sneakers while driving. Even Andrew cracks light about it upon hearing this.
  • Know When to Fold 'Em:
    • Both Mike Butt from Season 5 and Jason Zhang from Season 3 gave up driving for good. Aaron likely would have done this if he were named Canada's Worst Driver, but that wasn't necessary, as he graduated. This has been suggested to others, but no avail.
    • Kevin is also getting the point; at the start of Canada's Worst Driver Ever, he promised that if he doesn't graduate, he'll turn in his license and sell his car. When he actually did get named the worst he initially refused to destroy his license, but his boyfriend made him go through with it.
    • Angelina finally admitting she has a mental problem and seeking treatment. On the flip side of that, Canada's Worst Driver admitting they can't help Angelina.
    • In Season 14, both Brittany and Brandon, by the penultimate episode, made the promise to quit driving if either of them were named the worst. Alexis was reluctant at first but eventually agreed to the promise in the final episode. Only Brandon had to follow through as he was named the worst, while Brittany and Alexis were named the final graduate and runner-up respectively.
  • Landslide Election: Sometimes, a contestant does so much better than anyone else the judges don't even bother discussing who graduates.
  • Large-Ham Announcer: Andrew, in his impression of Don Cherry during the Hockey Challenge in Ever.
  • Laser-Guided Karma: Scott's insurance was yanked by his roommate, who got fed up with him. And in 2010, he was arrested for drug trafficking.
    • During the water tank challenge, any bad driving offense is immediately punished with a splashing of cold water.
  • A Lesson Learned Too Well: Shelby learned not to be afraid of doing the speed limit during his time on the show. Now if only he'd remember to stick to the speed limit...
  • Late-Arrival Spoiler: Worst Driver Ever brings back the worst drivers from past seasons, thus spoiling many of them. Unfortunately, for those watching on Netflix, it's a case of either not watching or just having to live with it, since it's one of only two seasons available.
  • Lethally Stupid: The contestants. Their goal is to become less dangerous.
  • Locked into Strangeness: In season ten, Andrew does a cold open where he looks at a photo from the first season and notes how grey his hair has become after years of hosting the show.
  • Long Runner: The series reached a total of 14 seasons ending in 2018, notably outperforming by a large margin every other country's version of the show. At the end of the 12th season finale, Andrew said he didn't know if there'd be another season — he didn't expect the show to get past the first!
  • Look What I Can Do Now!: In the years before their return on Canada's Worst Driver Ever, some of the bad drivers have significantly improved. Chris had shown enough improvement that he was allowed to graduate in the first episode. Some of the other drivers avert this, and are just as bad as when they left.
  • Loophole Abuse: A running gag in recent seasons has been to point out how many different vehicles a standard driver's license allows its owner to use.
    • This was taken to logical extremes with the "Cool Bus", a school bus that was modified to skirt the driving restrictions on standard driver's licenses. Not even Andrew can 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!
    • Dale may have attempted this in Ever with her injury in episode 7. She had left the rehab center and apparently incurred an injury breaking into her own house such that she was unable to drive. She was kicked off the show— but this did not save her from getting two (of five) votes for Worst Driver Ever.
  • 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 not not driving!"
  • Manipulative Editing: In Season 9, one challenge required the drivers to complete a tight reversing course, and a reverse slalom, then go through the course and slalom again forward, in a minute or less. All three completed it (Michael in one minute and one-quarter second), but only Kevin (who did it in 48 seconds - six seconds faster than Andrew) was shown as having passed.
  • Maybe Ever After: Season 3's Ed and his ex-girlfriend and nominator Elizabeth's relationship had deteriorated due to his bad driving, and both acknowledged that his improvement could lead to them reuniting. While they aren't officially back together by Ed's graduation, the experience has definitely strengthened their relationship
  • Medal of Dishonor:
    • The title "Canada's Worst Driver" and the crappy trophy the "winner" gets at the end.
    • Subverted in Season 12, where the trophy was repurposed into a "Final Graduate" Trophy and given to Tyler.
  • Mondegreen Gag: A possible instance of this with Andrew saying "Sly like the..." and Sly saying "Wind" instead of "Fox". It's possible Sly misheard it every time as "Fly like the...".
  • Moose and Maple Syrup: In Season 7, most of the challenges are themed around Canadian stereotypes. For instance, every other prop has maple leaves painted on it, moose are used as obstacles, there's a Car Curling minigame, and one challenge involves backing up a delivery truck full of beer cases through an obstacle course.
  • Ms. Fanservice: Nearly every season includes at least one younger woman, relatively attractive, with a tendency to dress more provocatively than others. Granted, the carnage they sow on the test courses and the obvious mental issues some exhibit (especially Angelina in season 5) detract from the fanservice a great deal. Season 11 seems to avert this, with the four women featured on the season all dressing somewhat more reasonably and/or modestly and while being somewhat pretty, they aren't reliant on being pretty while driving.
    • A notable example appears in Margherita, Season 8. Though her continuing to apply her makeup after she hit a berm during the Distracted Driving challenge isn't this; it was a requirement of the challenge. She and her well-endowed nominator, Cheryl, often wore revealing outfits during challenges. In the Gas Station challenge where they were given a BMW, Cheryl jokes that "you need to show cleavage in a BMW" and momentarily pulls down her top.
  • Mugshot Montage: Season 4 was filmed at a closed correctional facility. The show photographed the bad drivers mugshot-style for all the intros.
  • My God, What Have I Done?:
    • Father Giles, in a panic, hit the throttle instead of the brake, sending the car careening off the course. Upon looking at the results, he stated "What a disaster" in honest dismay.
    • 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 (she chewed him out for it, "No wonder you're Canada's Worst Driver!"). It eventually led to him concluding he didn't deserve to drive, and cutting up his license in front of the experts' panel.
    • Wil (Season 5), upon hearing the abuse he heaped on Melissa, his nominee. At the Confession Cam, he just broke down and cried.

    Tropes N-Q 
  • Nervous Wreck: These show up a lot. They're just as scary as road ragers and ditzes. Many address their issues with the resident psychologist and graduate. Many don't.
    • Tatiana from Season 1 was scared of going fast, and in her drive to the rehab center, appeared to be scared of performing left turns. She managed to mostly conquer this fear during rehab, becoming the second graduate.
    • Henrietta from Season 2, Angelina from Season 5 and Lance from Season 6 all suffered panic attacks and were unable to complete their final road tests. Angelina eventually was shipped off to psychiatric help.
    • Angelina was a big example of this. She constantly failed challenges, including her final drive, due to constant panic, to the point of which she had to take antidepressants. By the time of Ever, she no longer had them and the results became even worse than before, even culminating in her being sent to a psychiatric center.
    • Lance in particular was hard-hit by anxiety attacks in Season 6. He became nauseous when reversing, puked after failing challenges and wept like a child while reversing the camper van. In his road test, he began hyperventilating and pulled out a paper bag, which he later revealed he always carried with him, to Andrew's surprise. Before his final judgement, he rejected advice from the expert panel to seek professional help. Jamie wasn't any better in the same season, constantly asking her husband (when he's in the car) and flailing about.
    • Season 7 has two. Aaron had one on his test as well, but he was able to finish and graduated. Tab being a literal nervous wreck was her reason for coming to the center and fluctuates between "panic, panic, panic" to "calm and cool" throughout the season.
    • Diane, Margherita, Azim and Dallas in season 8. Dallas had such a fear of driving that she'd constantly break down crying; and Azim tended to stress out constantly before coming to the rehab center, developing a bald spot due to said stress. Both got advice from the therapist to help keep themselves calm during the challenges and improve enough to graduate. Diane hadn't driven much before rehab, and thus would be cursing her nominator/husband Stephane out, but she became the final graduate. Margherita occasionally had cases of anxiety kicking in.
    • Siham from Season 10 was originally an average driver, but a 4-car pile-up accident four years prior has caused her to have anxiety, requiring medication, and haven't driven much.
    • Season 11 has two contestants with anxiety issues. Renee gets teary driving at high speeds and gets flustered repeatedly, while Jillian gets teary and easily stressed from driving, which results in her taking it out on whoever's nearby.
    • Lou and Daniella in season 12, both of them terrified of highway driving.
    • From Season 13, we have Breanna (sobbed non-stop and was sure that she would die on every trip), Ashley (cried 14 times on the way to rehab, took her hands off the wheel when scared, and tried to make a U-turn in a roundabout), and Melanie (mixes up the gas and brake and even has trouble figuring out when her car is in park).
  • Never My Fault:
    • Taken to absurd levels by Krystal in Season 12. While one could give her the benefit of the doubt over her claims that her bad driving before being on the show was the result of her never having proper lessons (and at the very least, her brother never contradicted her on that count), she continued claiming during her final drive that none of her mistakes was her fault because she'd never been taught properly... after eight weeks of lessons from the show's experts.
    • Before Krystal, Kevin from Season 8 had this attitude. He often blamed his shortcomings on his glass eye, though as Andrew pointed out, it wasn't the glass eye that made him a bad driver, it was his inability to turn his head to compensate for the disability.
    • And before Kevin there was Lance, the winner of season 6. Despite suffering such severe panic attacks that he carried a paper bag to breathe into at all times and suffering breakdowns so severe that he would cry and even vomit from mild stress, he lashed out at the experts' suggestion that anything is wrong with him that needs treatment.
  • Non-Gameplay Elimination: Eight in the course of the series (four of them during the Ever All-Star season):
    • Season 2: Colin Sheppard deliberately performed so poorly in every test that he was expelled from Driver Rehab in the fourth episode. All participants relinquish their car keys upon arrival and are returned when they graduate; Colin's keys were destroyed, his vehicle towed back to his hometown, and his mother called to drive him home. Host Andrew Younghusband remarked, "Let's all hope Colin loses his license before his life."
    • Season 4: Donna Hicks was sent home in the fourth episode after exceptionally poor performance coupled with an angina attack. Donna was convinced that she could drive, despite all evidence to the contrary. The province of Ontario reviewed her driver's license after the show, revoking it shortly afterwards. She sent the show a letter that the Ministry of Transportation took away her license "because of your damn show".
    • Season 5: Crystal Hubley-Fararo left in the fifth episode after learning that her brother-in-law had been killed in a vehicular collision. A video retrospective of the rest of the rehab subjects revealed that they consistently failed to yield, the same behavior that got Crystal's brother-in-law killed.
    • Season 6: Scott Shurink was expelled in the second episode after revealing on-camera his numerous undocumented vehicular crimes: more than just excessive speeding (which ended his drive to rehab in the first episode), he drove while drunk, while suspended, while under house arrest, and impersonated a friend during one of his suspensions, getting said friend a speeding ticket for good measure. This, on top of his refusal to take rehab seriously, caused his nominator to cancel the insurance Scott needed to drive (insuring himself would have cost him well over $20,000 per year), while resident traffic law expert and retired OPP sergeant Cam Wooley contacted the Calgary police with this information.
    • Ever: Henrietta Gallant was sent home in the first episode because she had mostly given up driving after her original appearance on the show, and any skills she learned would ultimately go unused.
    • Also in Ever: Angelina's abysmal performance, combined with her medical issues, convinced the experts to send her away from the show for mental health treatment.
    • Another one for Ever: Yolanda got the dubious honour of being the first nominator kicked off the show after four episodes of either refusing to ride with Michael and/or berating and cursing at him regardless of how well he did. When she disputed Andrew's decision to pass Michael on a challenge in which she refused to participate, and on which he did fairly well, the panel decided she was a detriment to Michael's improvement and swapped her out with her husband/Michael's friend, who accompanied Michael back in Season 2 and seems generally far more patient.
    • A fourth one for Ever: Dale was kicked off in the seventh episode after running away from the Rehab Centre, injuring her hand (deliberately, in the opinion of the experts) trying to break into her own home, and generally refusing to take the lessons to heart.
  • Normal People: Andrew Younghusband said he was an average driver, before Season 6. After that, he no longer claimed to be average, as ten seasons of demonstrating the challenges have honed his driving skills.
  • "Not Making This Up" Disclaimer: Andrew and others insist the drivers really are this bad and are not actors.
    • After Angelina destroys half the obstacles and almost melts the truck's engine on Season 5's Eye of the Needle challenge:
    Andrew (narrating): For the millionth time, (the words "Real Driver" appear on screen) Angelina is not an actor.
    • During a "You Asked" episode, Andrew said that, if this WASN'T real, then the writers deserved awards, asking the audience "who could have come up with these characters?" - and also pointed out that no actor could shake as Tab did.
    • Once again, during Tyler's second attempt at the 180 Handbrake Turn in Season 10:
    Andrew *making frustrated hand gestures*: These PEOPLE! People always ask me where do I find them! *makes Mind Blown gesture* In the far reaches of Hell.
  • Not This One, That One: Inverted in the premiere episode of season 12, Andrew discusses how the drivers have wrecked pricey sports cars in their past assessment and other challenges. So this year, they're not going to drive one, but instead drive an ugly mobile home, which is nevertheless high-powered and will be good for teaching them, but with the added benefit that nobody will care if it gets wrecked. The mobile home then drives away to reveal a beautiful red Mustang, at which point, he admits I Lied.
  • Oh, Crap!:
    • Scott's reaction when informed by retired sergeant Cam Wooley (who also flashes his badge for good measure) that he is obligated to inform the police in Scott's hometown of Scott's confessions and actions on the drive to the rehabilitation centre.
    • Andrew's usual attitude when the drivers take him on a public drive.
    • Andrew's reaction In Season 10's distracted driving demo, when selfie-obsessed Chanie ran over a foam block at speed and nearly flipped the car.
  • Once a Season: Several tasks recur every year:
    • The contestants first have to drive themselves to the Rehab Centre using written directions (sometimes while running errands too, which was the case during early seasons)
    • The Assessment Course - A grab-bag of obstacles designed to measure how bad the bad drivers really are.
    • The "Eye of the Needle" challenge, a slalom course where the contestants must drive through a series of arches at a minimum speed. The aim is to teach the drivers the recurring moral of their story: look where you want to go.
    • The Distracted Driving challenge is the simplest course, where the drivers simply drove on an oval track while attempting to do various tasks such as eat foods or send a text message. It pretty much highlights why it is a bad idea to drive while distracted. In more recent seasons, they've exempted the drivers who do not drive distracted, or in Aaron's case, were a victim of distracted driving.
    • Another annual challenge is the "Shoulder Check Challenge"; the driver must drive down a road at 75 km/h and shoulder check to see signs indicating which lane they must use to dodge an obstacle in front of them. Season 8 decided to troll the drivers further on each of their first runs by marking both lanes in red, requiring them to come to a stop instead.
    • Recent seasons have also featured the "Longest Reversing Challenge Ever", where the drivers must reverse a car down an entire kilometre.
    • Then, of course, there's the famous Water Tank Challenge, where the contestants must drive a course in a vehicle with a tank of water on its roof. The point is to drive as smoothly as possible since the water conveniently sloshes right through the sunroof. Apart from the dead-slow drive of Tatiana in season 1, nobody ever gets through this one dry, including Andrew. The real goal is to get through without spilling too much and without letting yourself get distracted from the task at hand - driving safely.
    • Recent seasons have one called the "Know Your Limits" challenge. The bad drivers are asked to do a reverse slalom around cardboard figures placed at a distance between each other that theoretically, even the very worst of them should be able to complete the challenge without smashing any. After doing this, they're then asked how much they can tighten the course and still pass. The correct answer is generally either just a couple feet or not at all, as any more than this tends to fail. In at least a couple of instances, the bad drivers asked that the figures actually be widened, which the powers-that-be were quite happy to do.
    • The second-last challenge is the 'Mega Challenge': an obstacle course designed to test everything the bad drivers have learned up until this point. It also looks rather a lot like the Assessment Course, but also adds a few more elements incorporating tasks from previous challenges.
      • Additionally, there is a tradition that Andrew announcing the name of the mega challenge bombastically yells it just a little longer than the previous season... after 14 years, it's getting harder on his lungs to pull off.
    Andrew: This tradition has to stop.
    • Final Exam Finale: The Final Road test takes place in the city where drivers must navigate through a series of turns and other things such as driving on a freeway. For the most part, this test usually determines who is stuck with the unfortunate title of Canada's Worst Driver.
    • Two episodes occur where no-one graduates. Of course, no-one ever graduates in the first (since obviously, it's only the first episode), but there has always been one other where the judges decide to make everyone stay (sometimes because the graduates don't want to go!); more often than not this will be the fifth episode of the season, which is usually the point where the drivers who are talented but have attitude problems have gotten their act together and graduated, but the outright bad drivers haven't yet learned enough to graduate. This has resulted in three people being in the final episode of each season. (Subverted in Worst Driver Ever, see under Take a Third Option.)
  • One Judge to Rule Them All:
    • Near the end of season 7, Afiya is unanimously chosen by the experts to graduate, but Andrew is unconvinced. During the narration, Andrew implies that as the host who gives the drivers their licenses back, he might overrule the experts and not give Afiya's license back. Whether or not he has such a power (if he does, there are times where he hasn't used it), he relents and Afiya graduates.
    • In Season 8, Andrew used his influence to allow Dallas to graduate over Diane which 3 of the 4 judges initially voted for. Cam only changed his opinion after being persuaded by Andrew.
  • On the Next: Of course! (Andrew even uses that exact wording!)
  • Out of Focus: Shyamala got far more screen time than any of the other judges in Ever, mostly thanks to the various physical and mental problems suffered by the contestants. As a result, Philippe and Tim only really played an active role during the challenge demonstrations, and Cam's role for much of the season was limited to throwing in the occasional one-liner, though he did get a much larger role in the last two episodes thanks to Dale's borderline insanity and then the final road test.
    • So far in Season 11, Tim and Shyamala seem to be sharing equal screen time (due to the increased focus on the contestants driving with others as opposed to simply struggling with maneuvers), with Philippe and Cam sharing out the same roles as above.
  • Only Sane Man: Oddly enough, both Ryan and Descyara shared this role in Season 14 as their problems (cellphone addiction and driving recklessly respectively) were tame compared to the emotional baggage the other five nominees had.
  • Overly Long Gag:
    • Flora on the mini-golf challenge. As if golf couldn't get any more boring...
    • Sly's attempt at the limo figure-eight reversing challenge in episode three of Ever. He was driving so slow that one by one, all the other nominators, then all the other drivers and finally his nominator left the test track. Only he and Andrew remained by the time he finished.
    • Siham in Season 10 took over an hour to do the rail challenge. Lampshaded by Andrew when he leaves the practically stationary driver to deliver and discuss Ian's confession to the panel, looks at the screen and realizes Siham is still out there. To her credit, Siham does pass the challenge.
  • O.O.C. Is Serious Business: At the start of the 14th season's distracted driving episode, Andrew does away with the comedy and is dead serious when talking about the problems mobile phones, especially texting, have caused on the roads, and that drivers, even after having been involved in accidents, close calls, or knowing what the danger is, still refuse to not use their phones, not caring about the safety of themselves or others. Andrew calls it the mindset of a sociopath.
  • Parking Problems: Driving problems, really.
  • Parallel Parking: Goes about as well as you'd expect, especially when the drivers have to parallel park a Winnebago. Though Shannon from season 2 provided a surprising subversion in a different challenge where she was driving down a narrow dirt road and faced an ambulance, then performed an S-curve to get out of its way. After the challenge was over, she was proud of her S-curve, and then Andrew pointed out that she was actually parallel parking.
  • Pedal-to-the-Metal Shot: Beginning with Season 4, cameras would be installed in the test cars to showcase the contestants' proper foot control (or rather, lack thereof) in several of the challenges and driving lessons. Unsurprisingly, many of the more aggressive and careless drivers have a habit of mashing the gas and brake (and clutch, until the use of manual cars were retired) pedals. It's also used to show off some other unsavory habits of the drivers like the use of inappropriate footwear, i.e. Angelina's constant use of ill-fitting pumps, during the challenges.
  • Point-and-Laugh Show: To a certain extent, but the point is quite serious: Take bad drivers and make them better.
  • Potty Emergency: Season 10's Jason did this during the Final Drive, while straddling two parking spots for nurses. Andrew snarks that he had never seen such a combination of illegal parking and public indecency ever before.
  • 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.
  • Precision F-Strike:
    • Some of Donna's more colorful language in the Season 6 finale was left unbleeped.
    • Andrew has sworn only twice in ten seasons.
      • The first time happened in Season Eight after Flora lost control at over 140 km/h. For you Americans, that's more than 85 mph! The course was designed to be taken at 80 km/h, or 50 mph for Americans.
      • Season Ten's Eye of the Needle challenge has Andrew repeat George's "Fuckin' Morons" remark.
    • Season 10 doesn't censor "shit" anymore. So far, one could make a Drinking Game out of it.
  • Prison: Season 4 was held on the site of the defunct Guelph Correctional Center (which had been closed in 2001). Four drivers who had committed literally criminal driving offenses were locked up for a few minutes:
    • Donna, who admitted to driving drunk.
    • Teagan, for committing hit and runs.
    • Ashley and Ken, for engaging in a street race on the way to the show.
  • The Quincy Punk: Jakob wouldn't look out of place in the Sex Pistols. He's mostly an aversion to this, but he does have road rage issues...
  • Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: After Shmuel's speeding resulted in him completely obliterating the course's central wall during his Swerve and Avoid run in Season 11, the following exchange took place:
    Andrew: What's the one thing I want you to take away from this?
    Shmuel: To focus on—
    Andrew: DON'T! SPEED! (beat) DON'T. SPEED.

     Tropes R-Z 
  • Redemption Rejection:
    • Two contestants (Colin from Season 2 and Scott from Season 6) were thrown off the show for not taking things seriously enough and refusing to learn. Colin was the first to be expelled from any Driver Rehabilitation Center in the world.
    • Kevin in Ever sent the judges a letter claiming he was ready to take responsibility and drive well. When Kevin made the same mistakes as usual in that episode, he sent a second letter stating the same, only for the judges to take him to the task. This was perfectly in character; throughout the season, he repeatedly vowed that if he lost, he would give up driving. At the end, when he is named Canada's Worst Driver, he tries to go back on his promise and is only forced to stick to it when his boyfriend/nominator insists. It's later mentioned he bought a new car and is still driving.
    • Season Ten has cab driver Ian write a note of all the things he feels he needs to improve. The judges immediately dismiss it as deflecting responsibility.
  • Right Behind Me: One Ever episode started with Andrew having a nightmare that instead of doing a regular season of Worst Driver, they brought back the most horrid drivers they ever had. He hopes it's just a dream, but the segment ends with the remaining bad drivers standing behind him, and Andrew remembers they really are doing Canada's Worst Driver Ever.
  • Right for the Wrong Reasons: Kevin in Season 8 tried to do a three-point turn by pulling straight forward first, and predictably failed. However, Diane managed to do one successfully by doing the same thing, after being coached by her husband on how to do it.
  • Running Gag:
    • Shirley in Season 7 and 9, with a tendency to give Andrew hugs whenever she accomplished a task.
    • In Ever, Michael keeps saying the oath of the Blue Lantern Corps.
      • In one episode, Andrew tries to improvise a parody version for the Rehab Centre. It doesn't turn out well.
    • Season 10 has two of them, plus two rather subverted examples:
      • Chanie's tendency to always want to take a selfie before every challenge.
      • Jason's Happy and Sad dances (whenever he passed or failed a challenge).note  Andrew seems to be trying to bring this back in Season 11 with Sholom.
      • Subverted Example: the Taxi sign used whenever Ian drove the Cadillac. He graduated in the second example.
      • Second Subverted Example: George would be punched by his nominator Patrik whenever he screwed up a challenge. Even Andrew did this, but not before invoking a Do Not Try This at Home at the audience. George graduated in the 4th episode.
  • Safe Driving Aesop: Most seasons feature a "Distracted Driving" challenge. Unlike most challenges, the point isn't to teach the bad drivers how to eat, do their makeup, or send text messages while driving; it's to show them they can't do those things.
  • Scare 'Em Straight:
    • The fourth season is set in an abandoned prison complex. In the first episode, the drivers who have engaged in outright criminal driving behavior in the past are placed in prison cells for a few minutes to drive home what could happen to them if they don't shape up.
    • The Distracted Driving "challenge" is meant to show the bad drivers just how dangerous distracted driving really is, by having them go through a simple course at a low speed...then introducing distractions, which inevitably result in the bad drivers going through the course.
      • It's done too good of a job on occasion. Season 8's Margherita drifted off-course into a dirt mound, and Chanie from Season 10 nearly rolled the car over on the course.
      • Season 7 took this up to eleven, by having each of the bad drivers talk with fellow bad driver Aaron, who had nearly been killed when a distracted driver crashed into his car.
  • Screw This, I'm Outta Here:
    • There has been several times Andrew has simply called a halt to the public drive: either a driver emotionally loses it or performs so poorly Andrew doesn't want to continue.
    • Dale tried this. She was still a runner-up for the title.
      • This wasn't even the first time she attempted this. In Season 6, she pleaded with the panel to be kicked out of rehab due to "health concerns". Kicking her out however would mean that Dean would not graduate (and to a lesser extent, Jamie as well), so she finally relented and allowed Dean to graduate.
    • Jordan, Jillian and Renee (Season 11) have all tried to quit various challenges on the show after getting extremely flustered, stressed or upset. In the case of the latter two, Andrew generally can persuade them to continue after sitting with them.
    • Krystal stormed off-set multiple times as season 12 went on.
    • The finale of Season 12 has this trope happen twice. After Krystal callously started verbally abusing and laughing at Daniella, Steven, her nominator, just walked off the set (with the assumption that the show had permitted him to let him walk off the set for his own mental and physical safety) and was not around when she was awarded the title of Canada's Worst Driver. The second time was when Andrew ordered the halt of the public drive with Krystal and decided to make his own way back to the rehab center with the camera crew, leaving Krystal to drive herself back with the car's cameras still rolling the entire time. Despite Andrew doing this before with Kevin, this is the first time in the series' history that he decided to stop the drive and just walk away.
  • Secret Test of Character:
    • The "Know Your Limits" challenge involves a slalom around foam figures placed at a distance between each other such that any of the drivers should be able to complete it successfully. The real challenge comes afterwards when after completing it they ask them by how many meters between each one they want them to tighten it. The correct answer that shows they won't take stupid risks is to ask for it to not be tightened at all, or at best by one or two meters. (Although if they ask for more and are still able to complete successfully, then credit to them.) In at least one instance, they were delighted when one of the nominees asked them to widen it, which they happily did.
    • During Season 1, when Chris and Manuel are paired for a pick-up challenge, the course-builders tighten the course for Manuel to near-impossible levels. Manuel's nominator (and even Chris) are infuriated by this, but when Manuel learns about it, he immediately recognizes that they're testing his patience and issues with frustration impairing his driving.
  • Self-Deprecation: Michael Telford takes this to rather sad levels, and it's not Played for Laughs.
  • Selfie Fiend: Season 10's Chanie took selfies while driving. During the distracted driving challenge, she nearly rolled the car when she hit an obstacle while trying to take a selfie.
  • Shocking Elimination: In-Universe examples-
    • Colin getting the boot caught the rest of the candidates and their nominators off-guard.
    • Inverted with Dale—she snuck away from the show and injured herself (the panel thought it was deliberate). This sneaking away caused her to be expelled. The other contestants were very surprised when she was brought back to face the possibility of being named Canada's Worst Driver Ever.
  • Show Some Leg: When Andrew asked Billie-Jean from Season 3 how she passed her driving test (she was, amongst other things, unable to parallel park), her answer? "Flirt!" He really hoped her instructor was watching the show.
    • During Season 10's final episode, Chanie tries this on Andrew:
      Chanie: If I give you a hug, will you let me pass?
      Andrew: OK, that's the rudest thing I've heard at the rehab center all year.
  • Sibling Rivalry: Sholom and Shmuel from Season 11 are brothers who nominated each other for the show, and want to show they're a better driver than their brother. Shmuel graduates in the fourth episode. He is, however, still on the show as Sholom's nominator and is treated as such.
  • Silent Credits: The fifth episode of the fifth season had this in honor of Crystal's brother-in-law, whom she learned had been killed by a driver failing to yield while riding his motorcycle and left the show because of it.
  • Sir Swears-a-Lot:
    • Shannon from Season 2 swears enough for some of her challenges to sound like Morse code.
    • Nearly everything Season 4's Ashley says is bleeped out.
    • Jakob from Season 5 was this in his music, let alone when he was driving. That said, he did mellow out a bit as the season progressed.
    • While Brad from Season 6 generally didn't resort to profanity too often (with the notable exception of when Lance triggered his Berserk Button in the lane change rally), his wife and nominator Donna tended to drop a Cluster F-Bomb or three at the slightest provocation.
    • Kevin tended to swear a fair amount during Season 8 and Ever, but he really took it up to eleven after Andrew halted the road test, which all but guaranteed that he'd be named the worst.
    • Jillian from Season 11 tends to blow up at everyone and everything in her vicinity whenever she gets even slightly stressed out.
    • Descy from season 14 who swore in anger anytime things got hard. Though even after she calms down and eventually graduates successfully, she still swears up a storm in joy. Shyamala surprises everyone by joining her in the happy swearing.
  • Sketch Comedy: In recent seasons, Andrew sometimes has performed small sketches in regards to getting a drivers license and driving behaviors. Some examples in Season 12 include him being an old man farmer lecturing about texting and driving in Episode 4, reading a "Canadian News" newspaper at a CWD cafe talking about cultural driving differences in Episode 3, dressing up as an Air Dancer and looking at all the emotional driving dangers in Episode 5, and playing both a therapist and a patient talking about how the Swiss approve drivers licenses in Episode 6.
  • Small Reference Pools: Season 8 has, as is becoming usual, a right-hand drive car used to teach drivers to reverse in any vehicle. The car in question was an imported/Japanese market Toyota Celsior (right-hand drive), which Andrew refers to as a British car. In the UK, the Celsior was sold under the Lexus brand, just like in North America.
  • Sore Winner:
    • Ashley from Season 4 was not happy to be named the Worst Driver for that season and in an interview, after the series ended, she threatened to move to another continent.
    • Kevin in Ever not only snapped at Andrew after Andrew called a halt to the road test due to several near-collisions but refused to take the trophy and sulkily refused to burn his license (which he promised to do if he was declared Canada's Worst Driver Ever or if told by the panel to stop driving). Though, in fairness, after some pressure and prompting, he did burn it.
    • Jillian from Season 11 reacted pretty badly to being named the worst, at least initially. In an interview the day after the finale aired, she admitted that, in retrospect, it was the right decision.
  • Spinoff:
    • Canada's Worst Handyman takes much of the same concepts, but applies them to home renovation. It's just as bad.
    • Don't Drive Here!, a travel documentary series where Andrew goes to other countries and attempts to drive like the locals. Hilarity and frustration ensues.
  • Speech Impediment:
    • Angelina from Season 5 had a mild lisp and a tendency to slur her words, which made her sound uncannily like Sylvester the Cat.
    • Aaron, as a result of a car accident.
  • Step Up to the Microphone: Mike Butt from Season Five was the one who introduced Shopping Cart Hockey (introducing himself as Andrew Younghusband). One presumes he was given a script to memorize.
  • The Stinger: At the very end of the credits, a short audio clip is replayed of one of the driver's or nominator's reactions to something in that episode.
  • Stunned Silence: The experts will sometimes just stare speechless at the screen when the drivers do something completely stupid or show that they learned nothing from a recent lesson, such as when Jason from season 10 didn't remember the difference between the hand brake and the foot brakenote  despite it being taught to him right before the challenge.
  • Stylistic Suck: Believe it or not, Colin's driving. The season 2 contestant deliberately failed the challenges, getting him booted off the show—and his keys destroyed.
    • People suspect that Season 12's Krystal invoked this trope deliberately with her incredibly bad driving and boneheaded decisions.
  • Subverted Rhyme Every Occasion: The final episode of Canada's Worst Driver Ever has a sort of twisted version of this. Host Andrew does complete a rhyme, but instead of the rhyme being the end of it, he just sort of meanders off. This happens after Michael recites the oath of the Blue Lantern (see Survival Mantra below).
    Andrew: (speaking in hushed voice with gravity) Here at the rehab center, in the dark of night, I think we'll finish this challenge, but not without a fight. They're trying their hardest... come with me. But it will freak you out. I don't know... (normal voice) if he's driving with a gout or if he's got a bad elbow or if he can't see properly, but... jeez he drives like a monkey.
  • Suddenly Significant Rule: You need a license and insurance to get on the show in the first place. Usually, that's all fine and dandy, but what if you lose your insurance while on the show?. It happened to Scott and, well, see Shocking Elimination above.
  • Suckiness Is Painful: The whole CWD panel of experts and Andrew suffered this in Season 12, mostly due to Krystal's horrible driving and behavior. Their reactions during Krystal's public drive just scream this trope.
  • Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: More than often, the show will uncover somethings that need to be addressed for the viewers and the nominees.
    • Season 1's Faith-Ann could not do the tire changing challenge as it required crouching, and she had metal plates in her knees due to previous accidents.
    • Season 4 had two examples;
      • Donna lied on her application by not mentioning she had angina and experienced an attack during the Water Tank Challenge. Not only was she let go from the show afterwards, but experts Cam and Dan (a police officer and a driving instructor respectively), called their respective districts and placed her on medical review, which she may or may not have lost.
      • As an 18-year-old, Teagan had to drive Andrew's truck to rehab as he was not old enough to legally drive a rental. When he graduated, he left by taxi.
    • Season 6 had Donna, Brad's wife and nominator, who had to sit out of challenges due to challenges that could exacerbate a serious shoulder injury she had.
    • Season 10's Jason had seriously bad eyesight and was sent to the optometrist in the middle of the season for an eye exam. While there, the optometrist said he would have to contact the Ministry of Transportation about it which might put his license up for review (albeit likely not with any consequences worse than simply being barred from driving without glasses).
    • Season 13's Melanie spent most of her time drinking and partying, only for her to start having dizzy spells in the middle of Episode 6 and be sent to the hospital, missing two challenges and Travis' graduation as a result.
    • Season 14 is another season with two examples;
      • Brandon came to rehab with a huge cast on his left arm as he broke it during a skating accident. He was almost barred from competing without a doctor's note and had to drive with a spinner attachment in the first couple of episodes until the cast was trimmed back.
      • Karlene had a very frail body and was not allowed to compete in the Trough Challenge and the Teeter-Totter Challenge because of it (although she did have to take a modified version of the former).
  • Survival Mantra: In Canada's Worst Driver Ever, Michael recites the oath of the Blue Lantern: "In fear-filled days, in raging nights, with strong hearts full, our souls ignite. When all seems lost in the war of light, look to the stars, for hope burns bright. All will be well." Unfortunately, it never seems to help.
    Andrew: All will be well... if Michael maintains 70K an hour and keeps his hands on the wheel. (Michael crashes into a foam person and fails the challenge for the final time.) Michael may be Canada's Worst Driver Ever.
  • Take a Third Option: Not every episode has ended in graduation.
    • Colin (Season 2) and Scott (Season 6) were expelled from the show (and therefore did not graduate). Scott, as mentioned above, set the record for the fastest expulsion: he was thrown off in the second episode, while Colin was the first expelled from any version of the show.
    • Donna (Season 4) was sent home due to medical reasons.
    • Crystal (Season 5) was sent home out of sympathy after her brother-in-law was killed in a car accident (there was no graduate that episode).
    • 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).
    • In the Season 8 finale, somehow both Flora and Kevin ended up doing so equally bad overall after the final challenges. Leaving Andrew with the final decision, he decided to declare the first-ever tie for last place in the series' history.
    • In the first graduation of Worst Driver Ever (which, in another subversion, actually did have a graduate on the first episode), the panel is split on whether Henrietta should be "disqualified" because she wasn't really much of a driver anymore to be of concern, and on graduating Chris, the first-ever loser, because he showed his work on the assessment. They ultimately decided to do both.
    • In the fourth episode of Worst Driver Ever, Angelina was sent to a rehab facility due to her ongoing mental issues.
    • In the second and third episodes of Season 10, the experts refused to let George graduate despite being the most skilled driver, as they were worried he would pass his bad driving habits onto his son. For the fourth episode, they decided to bypass the issue by bringing his son to rehab and giving him private driving lessons, ensuring that he'd know good driving practices no matter what George (who ended up graduating anyway that episode) tried to teach him.
    • In the second episode of Season 11, the experts had to choose between Tina and Alex to graduate and are split. They eventually opt to graduate both of them.
    • In a minor example of this, Sholom and Shmuel nominated each other for the show and were both tasked as nominator and nominee. This meant that they would either split a task in half (such as the Head-to-head Reversing Challenge) or they'd do the challenge twice, once as a nominator and one as a driver. With Shmuel graduating, this is no longer the case.
    • Season 12 had Andrew, at the finale having to give the trophy to Krystal, who verbally attacked him throughout the season, or do not give it at all, which will look pretty petty. So he decided to repurpose the trophy into a final graduate trophy for Tyler.
  • Take That!: Andrew has stated that in the show's early seasons, many were nominated out of spite. Things have changed since. Season 11's Sholom and Shmuel did nominate each other out of spite, however (but, as it turned out, they had good reason).
    • In the Season 5 finale, right before Angelina was to go through the Mega-Challenge, there's a pixelated image of the "Start" sign with an image of Angelina slid over it such that the "S" was covered.
    • When introducing Canada's Worst Parking Lot challenge in Season 7, Episode 5:
    Andrew: ...what they don't know is that...other annoying cars will be getting in their way stealing spots, honking horns, and generally carrying on like, well, Americans.
  • Talking in Your Sleep: The sixth episode of Ever opens with Andrew lying in bed supposedly having a nightmare and muttering in his sleep one of the catchphrases of the show "Look where you wanna go," before waking up and saying he had a nightmare about all of the worst drivers they ever had come back to the rehabilitation center.
  • Tear Jerker: In-Universe examples: While many contestants break down in tears quite frequently, there are other times when they've been struck by truly tragic events.
    • The death of Crystal's brother-in-law Tom Stagno—in a vehicle accident.
    • For Wil from Season 5, it was learning just how verbally abusive he was. Melissa, the common-law wife he had nominated for driving issues, later stated he cried for a quarter of an hour.
    • Aaron, from Season 7, was nearly killed by a distracted driver six years before the taping. Every year one of the challenges is a distracted driving course, where the nominees must drive a simple course while distracted (from eating, drinking, smoking, texting, et cetera). The purpose is to show them just how dangerous distracted driving can be. In Season 7, the drivers (excluding Aaron) had to do this course, and after seeing just how bad distractions make them, they had to look Aaron in the eye and promise to never drive distracted again.
    • While it's difficult to sympathize with the likes of Angelina, her visible deterioration on Ever to the point of an undisputed mental breakdown (of which her poor driving was merely a symptom), and subsequent tearful departure for in-patient treatment, is very emotional to watch.
  • Tears of Fear: Several drivers are absolutely terrified of driving, to the point where a few broke down and cried.
  • Tears of Joy: Amy-Lee of Season 4, cried with happiness when she became the last graduate.
  • Tempting Fate:
    • Andrew Younghusband has allowed his own vehicle to be used from time to time. In Seasons 3 and 4, it was used for the final road test, and Teagan (being too young to drive a rental) drove it for some challenges, including the initial drive to rehab. Subverted in that Fate hasn't really shown up to collect: the worst that's happened to it so far was Season 4's worst driver, Ashley burning out the alternator in the final road test. Of course, the more cynical interpretation is that Fate simply hasn't had the opportunity to collect because it hasn't been used in challenges since then.
    • In the second-last episode of Ever, Andrew pretended to destroy Dale's driving license (actually destroying a copy) before she was expelled from the show. After she was driven away, Kevin turned to the other remaining candidates and said that "if he tried to do that to my license, I'd sue his ass." In the following episode, Kevin gets named Canada's Worst Driver Ever — and has to destroy his license himself to fulfil his promise that he'd do that were he named the worst.
    • Very minor, but in the finale, he was about to say Tyler was gold, but then Tyler hits something. Still, Tyler does by far the best that episode, even discounting his competition.
  • That One Level: In-Universe examples.
    • The most disliked challenge of all is the Water Tank challenge. You have to skillfully drive a car with a large tank of water (100 liters/26 gallons or 200 liters/52 gallons, depending on the season) fastened on top, with pipes that will direct any sloshed water onto the driver. The idea is to drive as smoothly as possible, to avoid getting drenched. It is pretty much impossible to complete the course without getting some water dumped on you—even Andrew always gets some water dumped on him and in Season 4, he took a hazard too fast and got drenched. He also got too cocky in Season 8 and... yeah. In Ever, he decided to have some fun and deliberately drenched himself.
      • Subverted for the audience. Seeing the bad drivers get Laser-Guided Karma for their bad driving made this challenge a favorite of the viewers.
    • In Season 6, there was a challenge that involved maneuvering a trailer with a boat on it through a narrow laneway of rims and then launching it. Much profanity ensued. In fact, when Andrew was doing this challenge, he found that the course was too narrow, nearly knocking over an obstacle himself, which prompted the producers to widen the course. Despite this, the test was still difficult for all those who participated in it.
  • That Poor Car: Except we actually see what happens to them.
    • 84, to be exact. 19 of which were complete write-offs.
    • Any car with a manual transmission is pretty much guaranteed to have it burnt out by a careless contestant before the episode is over.
  • "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Andrew will chew out a contestant or even a nominator for bad behavior or not taking the "rehabilitation" part of the show seriously. The panel of judges is specifically tasked with pointing out all the flaws in a driver's performance and Cam can be particularly merciless with his criticism.
  • There Are No Therapists: Season 2 was the only one without a therapist or psychologist. Every other season has one of these on the panel.
  • There Can Be Only One: In previous years, Andrew insisted the judges had to pick the worst driver, as in one worst driver. Subverted in season 8 when Flora and Kevin were so bad, even he couldn't pick just one and declared a tie.
  • There Should Be a Law: Andrew and Cam have stated that they think it's silly how much a standard driving license covers. Cam has stated he's amazed that someone can get their driving license in a Smart Car (which is very tiny) and immediately hop into a motorhome several times a Smart Car's length. Note Loophole Abuse above to see what else is legal to drive.
    • Despite his sympathy for Season 7's Aaron, Andrew is incredulous that being in a coma for two months, suffering debilitating physical injuries, and have forgotten how to walk or drive, Aaron still didn't lose his license. Averted with Season 12's Mike, who did lose his license but regained it after completing a special program.
    • In Season 13, he lamented that driving tests no longer require you to back up—just before Breanna, who was not tested on it, proceeds to make an absolute hash of the challenge.
  • This Is a Work of Fiction: Inverted for laughs. The trailer reversing challenge in season 13 is presented as a skit show. At the end of it, there's a fake set of credits with the names of many of the bad drivers from previous seasons and with the disclaimer "This unreal driving is truly a piece of work. Names, characters, places, and events are beyond imagination yet completely true. Any resemblance to safe driving is purely coincidental."
  • This Is Going to Be Huge: Played for Laughs when in a film dated 1954, "Safety Sam" claims cars will self-drive by the 1980s and fly by 2011 (when the real-life film was made).
  • Throw It In!: In-Universe example: Mike Butt suggested the challenge of shopping cart hockey to the show producers who loved the idea so much it was included as a challenge for all the drivers. Multiple variants of this challenge were integrated into the following seasons.
  • Tiny Guy, Huge Girl: From season 6, we had Brad and Donna Herringer.
  • Took a Level in Badass:
    • Andrew is becoming a bona fide Badass Driver, after ten seasons of demonstrating the challenges. Inverted for a few contestants, who go from wannabe Badass Drivers to Dumbasses No More.
    • Chris Ferguson in Ever. Back in Season 1, he was so deserving of the first Worst Driver title. But during Ever, he had a nearly-flawless performance during the first episode (he only hit a concrete barrier during the assessment challenge) that impressed Andrew that he became the season's first graduate—and the first to ever graduate in the first episode!
    • To a lesser degree than Chris, Shirley Sampson. Canada's Worst Driver in Season 7, she came back to rehab in Ever and passed all three challenges in episode 2, far exceeding all of the others (including the person she "beat" for the title, Sly), and becoming the second graduate.
    • Michael Telford and Shelby D'Souza, who were the runners-up in Seasons 2 and 3 respectively, had also become relatively competent drivers in the years since their original appearances. Notably, after the aforementioned two drivers graduated, Shelby and Michael were the only ones ever even considered for graduation during the remainder of the season (and Michael would have graduated in half the time if not for Angelina's enforced withdrawal).
    • As far as nominators are concerned, Kevin's nominator, Lenny, was extremely passive in Season 8, but when the duo came back for Ever, he was far more willing to call Kevin out on his mistakes, and had even gotten Kevin to agree to quit driving should he be named the worst-ever, and forced Kevin to actually go through with it when he initially tried to back out after he was named the worst.
  • Transatlantic Equivalent:
    • The show itself is a Canadian version of Britain's Worst Driver.
    • The foreign versions have been brought up from time to time; the first season featured the Clip Show Canada's Worst Driver vs. The World (which featured clips from international versions of the show), and during a season 7 cold opening, Andrew mentioned the time when the Dutch host got hit by a contestant.
  • Unfortunate Names: Season five has Mike Butt. Poor guy must have been picked on a lot in primary school... "For some reason", he gets the Full-Name Basis treatment from the show itself, too. Mike is the nephew of comedian Brent Butt, creator of Corner Gas.
  • Un-person/Canon Discontinuity: Kinda. In Worst Driver Ever, they mention Kevin as the Season 8 Worst, completely ignoring that he was Co-Worst with Flora. This may be caused by Flora refusing to return.
    • A variant of this occurs on the fifth episode of Season 11. Shmuel is introduced as Sholom's nominator and absolutely no mention is made of his time on the show in the four episodes prior as a contestant (or that he graduated)
  • Unsportsmanlike Gloating: Andrew appealed to Krystal's competitive nature by betting her that she can't finish a particular challenge properly. It worked and she completed the challenge, but then she tried to rub it in Andrew's face. What she didn't understand was that Andrew is trying to teach her things and her doing them successfully means they both win.
  • Unwanted Assistance: Sometimes, a bad driver's biggest problem is the nominator, who must learn this lesson. In Season 8, Flora's husband and Nominator Frank constantly insisted on "helping", which ultimately led Flora to be named co-winner of that season along with Kevin.
  • Vanity License Plate:
    • There are two readable license plates in the opening sequence. The yellow (weaving through traffic without signalling) car's reads "XLR8N"Meaning; the orange (which is signalling left, in a left turn lane, but turns right) reads "WRONGWAY". It's later seen going the wrong way down a one-way street.
    • One contestant has the license plate "SPEEEED".
  • Vomit Discretion Shot: From Season 3, Denice gets sick during her bio drive, but thankfully the results are hidden by the minivan she's driving.
  • Watch the Paint Job: 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.
  • Wham Episode: A few from the show's run stand out:
    • Season 2, Episode 4, which saw Colin's expulsion.
    • Season 4, Episode 4, when Donna was sent home due to her health problems, which in turn caused Cam and head driving instructor Dan to write to her local licensing board and request that her license be revoked (which it eventually was).
    • Season 5, Episode 5, when Crystal learned that her brother-in-law had been killed in a motorcycle accident. The episode's events inspired Arun to make a serious effort to improve his driving, and in part led to Mike Butt destroying his driver's license in the season finale due to seeing the devastating effects on Crystal.
    • Canada's Worst Driver Ever had so many that it could qualify as a Wham Season. In the first episode, Henrietta was sent home after admitting she had given up driving, and Chris was given the unusual distinction of graduating based solely on the initial skills test. The fourth episode saw Angelina suffer a complete mental breakdown and have to be shipped off to a mental health clinic, along with Michael's nominator Yolanda being removed and replaced by her husband due to her negativity and habit of insulting Michael (plus an insurance problem that wasn't mentioned in the show itself). In the seventh episode, Dale got thrown out of rehab after injuring herself, and then in the following, final episode, she was brought back anyway as two of the experts actually considered her to still be the worst driver of the group.
  • Wham Line:
    • Shannon of Season 2 initially admits to (and demonstrates) an enjoyment of hitting things while driving. In Episode 3, she reveals the reason she's trying to become a better driver—a reason no one on the show was aware of:
    Shannon: "Maybe I do need help, because, I mean, I'm going to have a child..."
    • Andrew's line to Colin in Season 2, after he and the experts decided they'd had enough of this crap:
    Andrew: Driver rehabilitation centres just like this one have existed now for five years. We operate in nine different countries. And in the entire history of us doing this programme, no-one has ever been expelled from our educational course. [slices Colin's car key in half with a disc cutter] You, sir, are expelled.
    • On a similar note, what Andrew said to Donna in Season 4, after it turned out that she had falsified her medical details to hide her potentially lethal case of Angina:
    Andrew: You're done driving at the rehab centre. And our official line is, you should never drive.
    • In Season 5's Handbrake Turn challenge, after Crystal fails miserably by "killing" the foam figure with her nominator's face:
    Andrew: "Arun is the next person scheduled to run this challenge, but while he waits for the course to get reset, Crystal receives a phone call from her mother. There's been a tragedy."
    • Mike Butt gets one during his final drive, which leaves him shaken for the rest of the drive and proves to be the catalyst for him voluntarily destroying his license:
    Andrew: "Watch out for grandma!"
    • Chanie's admission near the end of the Season 10 finale that she had been attending rehab without the medication she's legally required to take to deal with the problem that causes her to have trouble focusing (not specifically named in the episode, but strongly implied to be ADHD). She'd already had the worst final drive of the three finalists, but from the judges' reactions, it was pretty clear that she had just ensured that she was going to be named Canada's Worst Driver.
  • Wham Shot:
  • What Happened to the Mouse?: Several "worst" contestants are conspicuously absent from the All-Star Season. Presumably, this was due to them being unavailable or flat-out refusing to return, though the show didn't specify either way. These include:
    • Maddelena (Season 1 runner-up).
    • Ashley and Emily (Season 4 winner and runner-up respectively).note 
    • Lance (Season 6 winner). note 
    • Flora (Season 8 co-winner with Kevin) — while her absence wasn't explained in-show, the series' Facebook page says that she was asked to return, but refused to do so.
    • Mike Butt (Season 5 runner-up) and Jason (Season 3 winner) quit driving for good, so their absence at least makes sense.
    • Averted with the absences of Dale's and Michael's original nominators, which the show actually did take the time to explain (Dale's original nominator had fallen out with her, and Michael's original nominator was having health problems).
  • What Were You Thinking?:
    • In Season 7, both Sly's nominator and the experts said this to him after his decision to "gun it" during the trough challenge ended up with him both ripping out the test car's tailpipe and punching a large hole in its gas tank.
    • Chanie got this reaction from the experts in Season 10, after she admitted that she hadn't been able to get a supply of medication vital to her ability to focus in time for her appearance on the show, and decided not to bother mentioning this little fact to anyone until after the final drive.
  • Wiper Start:
    • Michael, when trying to start his car to drive to the rehab center in Season 2, popped the hood instead.
    • Also in Season 2, Karen did a literal Wiper Start.
    • Jason from Season 3 started Andrew's truck 3 times—though it was already running. Andrew winced every time.
    • Dean from Season 6 did a Wiper Finish in the icy corner challenge when he went spectacularly out of control and demolished the course. As the car gradually rolled to a stop, the wipers suddenly came on for some reason.
  • Women Drivers: Well, the women on this show qualify. On the other hand, so do the men. Overall, the trope is averted, as there are exactly as many female contestants as male over the course of the show's run note  Paul (Season 6) gave an interesting twist on the trope. During his "audition tape", he commented that you don't need any skill to drive cars. His evidence? "Women can drive them." note 
  • Workaholic: Season 5's Crystal. Unfortunately, she often took her work into her car...
  • Worth It: Many of the graduates have left glad to have been on the show. Aaron said that other drivers learning from his story made his ordeal worth it.
  • Your Other Left: Whenever contestants take a challenge together, this trope is on full display.
    • During Season 5, all the drivers were put into the same limo together and had to take turns driving the limo backwards around a course. The advice was shouted and this trope ensued.
    • If you count cases when it's the backseat-driving passenger shouting advice, this happens just about every season.

 
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"I Just Don't Feel Safe"

During a drive on "Canada's Worst Driver Ever," Kevin is told that his drive is done if he commits another ticketable offense. He proceeds to almost turn left against a red light and then when it does turn, it's into oncoming traffic. Host Andrew is forced to end the drive, telling Kevin that he just doesn't feel safe driving with him. Kevin very well could be Canada's Worst Driver... Ever.

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5 (6 votes)

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