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'Welcome to the country'smost disturbing car show.'
Andrew Younghusband, opening season 5.

A Canadian Reality Show which focuses on rehabilitating the worst drivers in The Moose And Maple, as nominated by their friends and family members. The object of the show is essentially to learn enough about proper driving in order to 'graduate' from rehab, done in the form of different challenges meant to build specific driving skills. The winner (or should we say loser) in the end is crowned the titular 'worst driver', and often receives an equally crappy looking trophy.

Canada's Worst Driver 2 was the second season of the Canadian reality TV show Canada's Worst Driver, which aired on the Discovery Channel.As with the past season, eight people, nominated by their family or friends, enter the Driver Rehabilitation Centre to improve their driving skills. Official website Canada's Worst Driver (CWD), is a reality television series first aired on Discovery Channel Canada, based on the UK Channel 4 Television Corporation's Britain's Worst Driver. Canada's Worst Driver is produced by Proper Television, and is hosted by Andrew Younghusband.

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. They're no worse than the other contestants. The show started in September 2005 and is still ongoing, having wrapped up its seventh season in December 2011.

• The Alleged Car: Mike from Season 5 bought these exclusively.
  • Over the course, Season 6 managed to turn a nice new 2010 Chevrolet Camaro into one.
    • At least it still runs well.
  • Again, Season 7 with a used Dodge Challenger painted in a Canadian Theme. You can guess what happened to the motif. It got so bad, that they gave it a funeral during the season finale.
• Asian Drivers: Not that they're any worse than their fellow contestants.
  • 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.
• 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. When the show hires a relationship therapist, this is clearly a serious problem.
• 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 able to quickly overcome his fears of driving, and was the first graduate of the season. Fittingly, he also had the most magnificent facial hair of any contestant too!
• 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:
  • Philippe Létourneau (high performance instructor from season 2 onward), former race car driver and professional diving 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
  • Andrew himself might be turning into one after (as of October 2011) 7 seasons of demonstrating challenges.
• Badass Long Hair: Again, Paul. He had arguably the longest hair of any contestant from any of the seasons.
• 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 narration, but he and the experts never attacked her faith, instead focusing on the need for her to develop better driving skills and habits.
• The Big Guy: Former police Sgt. Cam Woolley is a large man. His no-nonsense stare, intolerance of lawbreakers and his position as a former traffic cop make him a guy you don't want to piss off.
  • Paul and Tommy from Season 6 showed another side of this trope when they had troubles fitting in the cars.
• 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.
• Camera Abuse: Cameras are sent flying several times a season. The producers seldom let the resulting footage go unaired.
• Canada, Eh?: Played straight by Season 7, as most of the challenges are themed around Canada in mostly stereotypical manners. A swerving challenge had a moose as its target, there was a Car Curling game, doughnuts were brought up for the donuts challenge (as in the spinning a car in circles-type of donuts), etc.
• Captain Crash: The drivers sent to rehab for recklessness or obliviousness tend to be this. A number of them have wrecked so many cars that they've lost count. Andrew will sometimes comment that these drivers are lucky to be alive.
• Car Meets House: Occasionally played straight by contestants in their past experience. And in Season Four, which was held at a closed jail, there was an onscreen case 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.
• Casual Danger Dialog: The host at times. 'When we come back, Father Giles nearly kills me.'
• Catch Phrase: 'Look where you want to go' is perhaps the single most important lesson of the show, and thus is repeated a lot.
  • 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.'
• 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.
• Cerebus Rollercoaster: The show has a serious point, but most of it's 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.
• Chronically Crashed Car: Every single car ON the show, and most that the drivers have used as well.
• Clip Show: Season 3 was accompanied by a clip show detailing the top 101 problems on Canadian roads, as demonstrated by that season's contestants.
• Clothing Damage: An interesting variation. In Season 6, Lance started out as dapper as could be. At the end, he looked like a slob, wearing a torn wifebeater and some face stubble.
• Cloudcuckoolander/The Ditz: Some of the contestants are shockingly clueless. These are arguably the scariest type of bad driver.
• The Cobbler's Children Have No Shoes: Dale (Season 6's runner-up) had an extensive history of ignoring traffic rules and bumping things despite her husband being a driving instructor.
• Completely Missing the Point: While the show's point is making bad drivers better, 'Let us graduate and we promise we'll never drive again' was a line often heard on the first season. Not so much later seasons, though.
  • Father Giles in Shopping Cart Hockey--the intent is to teach control while moving fast. Father Giles barely got above 10 km/h. he also was the only one to score a goal, aside from Andrew Younghusband himself.
• Cool Car: Many challenges (often ones that require the use of speed and control) will often use fancy cars, mainly of the classic variety.
  • This got to the point where people pleaded with the producers to stop using classic cars on the show. So for Season 6, they instead bought a nice shiny new Camaro! You can guess what happened to it.
  • For the 2011 season, they instead bought a used 2009 Dodge Challenger R/T, customized with a Canadian flag paint job to go with the Canada, Eh? theme of the season
• Decided by One Vote: With only 5 judges, tie-breaking votes happen a lot.
  • Occasionally averted entirely when one candidate does way better than all the rest (and all agree that the candidate should leave), or when only one judge dissents (in Season 5, all judges agreed that Angelina should be the worst driver, save for Cam Woolley who named Mike Butt instead.)
• Directionless Driver: And it's both genders.
• Distracted by the Sexy: When Andrew asked one contestant 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.
• 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.
• 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.
  • In the show's opening, there's a car that drives like this. Its license plate reads 'XLR8N'.
  • In Season 1, Faith Ann Stone was a speed freak who was nominated by 4 people--all acting independantly.
  • In Season 2, Sean's vanity plate literally read 'SPEEED'. Boy did fellow contestant Michael get some mileage out of that.
  • In Season 3, Thomas Hobbs was an aspiring street racer. Street racing is a criminal offence in Canada.
  • In Season 4--speaking of street races--Ashley and Ken actually got into one on the way to the rehab center! Remember what was said about this being criminal? They nearly got the show shut down.
  • In Season 6, Scott and Dean both drove 50 km/h (30 mph) over the limit and were ordered by the camera crews to stop the trip altogether.
  • In Season 7, Afiya had to pull over for going over 50 km/h over the limit while Jon would have been stopped if there had been a crew member in the car.^[1]
• 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^[2] Paul from Season Six, 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 was so bad that five cars brought out for the challenge had the 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.
• Drunk Driver: Sadly, some of the contestants have indeed done this.
• 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.
  • 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 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: Crystal stopped finding her own driving habits funny after her brother-in-law Tom Stagno died in a traffic accident.
• 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 winner. 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 the actual information center.
• 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.
• Epic Fail:
  • Scott and Dean from Season 6 weren't allowed to finish their drive to the rehab center, which is the very first challenge in the series.
  • Likewise, Afiya from Season 7 sped so much that the cameraman ordered a stop. Not only that, she hit an obstacle even before leaving the parking garage where the drive began. Jon would have been stopped if he had been accompanied by a cameraman (the Corvette he drove to rehab didn't have enough seats to seat a cameraman).
  • Being the first contestant to be kicked off of anyWorst Driver show in the world: (Colin from Season Two)
  • Getting kicked off the show -- in the second episode (Scott from Season Six set the record for fastest expulsion.)
  • Getting kicked off the show -- by your own nominator (Scott from Season Six, when his nominator Danny cancelled his insurance.)
  • Angelina from Season 5 failed a staggering 22 out of 23 challenges on her way to 'winning' the show. As an indication of just how terrible that is, bear in mind that Colin from Season 2 deliberately tried to fail every challenge during his time on the show.. and still managed to pass two challenges prior to getting ejected.
  • The Water Tank Challenge usually floods the interior of the car. Dean from Season Six, however, managed to flood the car's engine with a hard stop after the first straightaway. He didn't even get to the precision driving parts.
  • In some challenges, obstacles are carved and painted styrofoam. On at least two occasions, they've run out of obstacles before the nominees can complete the challenges.
• 'Everybody Laughs' Ending: Father Giles and Guy--his brother and nominator--walked away from the Water Tank Challenge laughing after Father Giles stated he thought he did fairly well. He did: although he got soaked, he didn't collide with anything.
• Everything's Better with Llamas: The first 'drive to the rehabilitation centre' challenge ever, had a checkpoint at an Alpaca farm.
• Friend to All Living Things: Lauri from Season 7 .. when its not affecting her performance of course! (She was shown driving with a car filled with additional 'passengers', mainly pets.)
• Ghost Town: Season 3 was held in Edgar, a ghost town in Ontario.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: Some drivers have absolutely no control over their road rage.
• 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.
• 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.
• Karma Houdini: Scott may never face charges for his literally criminal driving. However..
• 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.
• Loophole Abuse: The 'Cool Bus', a school bus that was modified to skirt the driving restrictions on standard driver's licenses. Andrew can't believe that taking out most of the seats, painting it so it doesn't look like a school bus (it was painted purple), and altering the sign on it (as demonstrated) is enough that anyone with a standard license can drive it, and it doesn't even have seat belts.
• Malaproper: Angelina from Season 5 did this a lot. Near the very end of the season, after being repeatedly told that she should never, ever drive again, she repeatedly and angrily told Andrew that 'I'm not not driving!'
• Medal of Dishonor: The title 'Canada's Worst Driver' and the crappy trophy the 'winner' gets at the end.
• 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. It eventually led to him concluding he didn't deserve to drive, and cutting up his licence in front of the experts' panel.
• Nervous Wreck: These show up a lot. They're as scary as road ragers and ditzes.
  • In Season 6, Lance had a panic attack during the final challenge (drive through Niagra Falls), and was taken away in an ambulance.
• Non Gameplay Elimination: Four in the past seven seasons:
  • 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 and his vehicle towed back to his hometown. Host Andrew Younghusband remarked 'Let's 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; whether or not it was revoked was not stated.
  • 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 behaviour 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 first test in the first episode), he drove while drunk, while suspended, and used his friend's license. Said friend immediately cancelled the vehicle insurance Scott needed to drive, while resident traffic law expert and retired OPP sergeant Cam Wooley contacted the Calgary police with this information.
• Normal People: Andrew Younghusband says he's an average driver. He may be turning into a subversion, as seven seasons of demonstrating the challenges have honed his driving skills.
• Not Making This Up Disclaimer: Andrew Younghusband 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.

• Once a Season: Several tasks recur every year:
  • The initial challenge, where the contestants must follow directions to drive themselves to the Rehab Centre (sometimes while running errands too, especially during earlier seasons)
  • The Assessment Course - A grab-bag of obstacles designed to measure how bad the bad drivers really are.
    • Book Ends - The second-last challenge is the 'Mega Challenge': a 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, with some additions (like the J-Turn and Doughnut Challenge)
  • 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.
  • Then of course, the infamous Water Tank Challenge, where the contestants must drive a course intended to traversed as smoothly as possible .. since the car they drive it in is rigged with a tank of water that will spill straight onto them through the sunroof!
  • Two episodes occurs where no-one graduates. Of course, no-one ever graduates in the first (according to the rules of the show), but there has always been one other where the judges decide to make everyone stay (sometimes because the graduates don't want to go!) This has resulted in three people being in the final episode of each season.
• 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, he's never used it), he relents and Afiya graduates.
• 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.
  • 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.
• Point and Laugh Show: To a certain extent, but the point is quite serious: Take bad drivers and make them better.
• Preacher Man: Father Giles from Season Five is a Roman Catholic priest. He considered his time on the show a spiritual journey as well as a learning opportunity, and was genuinely happy to have gone through all this.
• Precision F-Strike: Some of Donna's more colorful language in the Season 6 finale was left unbleeped.
• Prison: Season 4 was held in the Guelph Correctional Center in Ontario (the jail had been closed in 2001). Four drivers who had committed literally criminal driving offenses were locked up for a few hours:
  • Donna, who admitted to driving drunk
  • Teagan, for committing hit and runs
  • Ashley and Ken, for engaging in a street race on the way to the show.
• 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.
• 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 fastest expulsion: he was thrown off in the second episode.
  • 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).
• Spin-Off: Canadas Worst Handyman, takes much of the same concepts, but applies them to home renovation. It's just as bad.
• Sure Why Not: Season 5's Mike Butt talked about a driving game called Shopping Cart Hockey, where you pushed a shopping cart with a car. It was used as a challenge. Season 6 had something similar with a soccer ball, and Season 7 used oversized curling rocks.
• Take That: Andrew has stated that in the show's early seasons, many were nominated out of spite. Things have changed since.
  • 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 the 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.

• 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 Five it was learning just how verbally abusive he was. Melissa, his nominee, later stated he cried for a quarter of an hour.
  • Aaron, from Season 7, was nearly killed by a distracted driver six years prior to 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.
• 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 (for example, Teagan drove it to the rehabilitation center). Subverted in that Fate hasn't shown up to collect..yet.
• That One Level--again, In-Universe: The most disliked challenge of all is the water tank challenge. You have to skillfully drive a car with a large tank of water (200 liters or about 50 gallons) 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 (I think in season 5) he took a hazard too fast and got drenched.
  • In Season Six, 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.
• That Poor Car: Except we actually see what happens to them.
• There Should Be a Law: Andrew Younghusband and Cam Woolley have stated that they think it's silly how much a standard driving license covers. Cam Woolley 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.
• Too Dumb to Live: The utterly clueless behaviour of some of the drivers does indeed pose a risk to life and limb.
• Trans Atlantic Equivalent: The show itself (along with several others) is a spinoff of Britains Worst Driver.
  • Went the other way during the Season 7, Episode 6 opener, when Andrew mentioned the Dutch Equivalent; the host of that show got struck by the car a contestent was driving.
• Watch the Paint Job: 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.
• What an Idiot! (In-Universe): 'This guy's an idiot!' said by Cam Wooley about Colin from Season 2. While his remark is based on Colin's driving, the other reasons viewers may agree with Mr. Wooley are under the YMMV tab.
• 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.
  • One driver (Jason from Season 3?) started Andrew's truck 3 times--though it was already running. Andrew winced every time.
• Women Drivers: Well, the women on this show qualify. On the other hand, so do the men.
• Worth It: Many of the graduates have left glad to have been on the show.
• Your Other Left: Whenever contestants take a challenge together, this trope is on full display.
  • During the 5th season all the drivers were put into the same limo together and had to take turns driving the limo backwards around a course. 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.

Notes

1. ↑His car was too small to fit both his nominator and a cameraman.
2. ↑Motorcycles have manual transmissions as well

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Characters/CanadasWorstDriver

Go To

Throughout the show’s 14 season run, the Rehab Centre has had multiple contestants ranging from good, to bad.

Warning! Spoilers ahead unmarked! Note also that cast are listed in order in each season from the worst driver named for that season going backwards to the first graduate. You have been warned.

The Host and Panel of Experts

Andrew Younghusband

• Bait-and-Switch:
  • Has done this multiple times. He could say something like 'We don't have to graduate people' in front of the person who was a strong candidate, but then gives their licenses back.
  • In Season 9, it looked like he cut up Dale's license in front of her.. only to then reveal that he destroyed a copy as he has no legal authority to destroy people's license. He did the same thing to Chanie in Season 10, but it turned out that he cut up an older license. And then he did it to Alexis in Season 14, but like with Dale, it was a fake and used to drive the point that despite not being the Worst that season, she was still a dangerous driver.
• Berserk Button:
  • Don't ever drive like an idiot in front of him.
  • He also does not like it when people are casual about drunk driving, as he lost a friend to drunk driving long ago.
  • Isn't too happy around people who don't take the rehab centre seriously.
• Deadpan Snarker: All the time.
• Hypocritical Humor: In Season 8..
  Andrew: As the host of Canada's Worst Driver, I'm not allowed to curse, but holy (bleep) (bleep) balls, Flora scared the living (bleep) (bleep) out of me.
• Nice Guy: He is generally nice to the nominees, and encourages them to become better drivers.
  • Beware the Nice Ones: That being said, he will talk firm to anyone that does something dumb, or isn't following orders.
• Non-Actor Vehicle: He was a writer before hosting the show.
• One Judge to Rule Them All: As Host, he has the right to vote alongside the panel of experts, and will occasionally try and persuade a few to come to his side.
• Screw This, I'm Out of Here!:
  • He ended Kevin's final drive in Ever after Kevin made a ton of careless and outright dangerous mistakes, eventually culminating in him nearly colliding head-on with another car.
  • He left Krystal's final drive in Season 12 after her constant ignorance, and verbal abuse was too much for him. Even his tone of voice sounded like he had enough.
• Sitcom Arch-Nemesis: Krystal saw him as this, even though he was just trying to help her.
• Tempting Fate: After warning Kevin in his final drive in Ever that any more ticketable offences would see the drive stopped there and then, he was clearly worried about the prospect of having to stop the drive for some comparatively minor infraction. So, Kevin ended up providing one hell of an infraction by driving straight into oncoming traffic and only narrowly avoiding a collision.
• There Can Be Only One: Andrew is adamant that each season has only one Canada's Worst Driver, and refuses the notion of having a tie. It gets subverted in Season 8 when Flora and Kevin were so bad in their performances, and the fact they refused to give up driving, that Andrew had no choice but to give them both the title (which judging from his tone of voice, it was a decision he did not want to go for).
• Took a Level in Badass: Admits in a Q and A special that he didn't have a license until he was in his late twenties, but doing all these challenges has risen his skill set from a regular driver to almost Philippe's level.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: While overall still nice, Andrew's exasperation with the bad drivers have led to increased snarkiness in the later seasons, even telling one driver 'you can't steer for shit'

Cam Woolley

• Berserk Button: Never call police officers dumb, as Colin and Scott soon found out the hard way.
• The Big Guy: Or as Andrew calls him, the 'Big man on Campus'.
• Death Glare: Gives these out whenever something stupid happens.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: The bluntest and strictest of all the experts, but will give out compliments when deserved, and has good reasons to be stern.
• The Leader / The Lancer: The former as he has been the longest expert on the show, and the latter as he usual discusses matters with Andrew the most.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: He is a former highway police officer, so will tell the driver's road laws to let them know what's at risk.
• Retired Badass: He's a former Police Officer by Season 5.

Philippe Letourneau

• Badass Driver: Before becoming an expert, he was a former race car driver with over 40 podium wins in his career. He also teaches advanced driving techniques on the off seasons.
• Hidden Depths: He continues to be an expert because his cousin died in a car accident, as revealed in Season 12.
• The Lancer: To Cam. It's very rare that they are on the same side of a tie. Also fitting that Philippe was a race car driver and Cam was a police officer before they came onto the show.
  Phillipe: 'You know, I don't usually agree with you, Cam, but in this case I think you're right'
• Out of Focus: At first he tended to be the expert who got the most screen time after Cam. Since then, Shyamala's largely taken over that position, and in some seasons he's even gotten the least screen time of the experts, due to public driving (which is generally handled by Tim) becoming a more regular fixture on the show.
• Spear Counterpart: To both Kelly and Juliana, although he's been in more seasons than the two put together.

Shyamala Kiru

• Ascended Extra: At first she didn't get much more focus than any of the show's previous psychologists. Over time, however, she's risen to being probably the most prominently featured expert on the show aside from Cam, and in some seasons (particularly Ever and 11) has even exceeded his screen time.
• Bollywood Nerd: She is the smart one of the group, and has an Indian background.
• Expy: The fourth psychologist the show has had but feels more in common with Uzma Rehman from Season 1 as she was the first psychiatrist to not drive race cars.
• The Medic: The show's resident psychologist since Season 7.

Tim Danter

• Ascended Extra: Like Shyamala, he has been getting more screen time in recent seasons as more of the off-course lessons that he gives to the nominees are shown.
• Berserk Button: Underestimating how hard his job is seeming to be one, as he let out a Big 'NO!' when Adam admitted he wanted to be a driving instructor, and he gave Cam a Death Glare for believing one of the bad drivers could be one
• Butt-Monkey: Out of all the experts, Tim gets the most teasing from Andrew for his shirt choices, being used for Armimder's Water Tank run in Season 12, and his stoic attitude. However, Tim takes it all in stride.
• Greek Chorus: For his first couple of seasons he was straight-faced and focused on driving instructions, but since Season 11 he's come to being this.
• Heroic BSoD: Throughout his 6 seasons on the show, he's had plenty of these.
• Iconic Outfit: Golf shirts. Which Andrew ribs him a lot about.
• Signature Move: He has always pushed the drivers to start doing a running commentary while driving as he believes it helps them focus.
• The Stoic: He rarely emotes, although he does get happy when he sees someone do a good job.

Scott Marshall

• The Leader: Before Cam broke his record, Scott was the longest person since Season 1 to be on the panel.
• Put on a Bus: Left the show after Season 3. Though it could also be because the show didn't renew its sponsorship with Young Drivers.

Kelly Williams

• Badass Driver: She's not only a CASCAR Super Series (now NASCAR Pinty's Series) driver, but she's the only female to win a race in the series' history.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: Only appeared in one season.

Jim Kenzie

• Badass Bookworm: His writing has been used by the Ontario Police Force.
• The Last of These Is Not Like the Others: The show has had driving instructors, a law enforcer, and psychologists, but Jim is an automobile journalist.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: Only appeared in one season.

Uzma Rehman

• The Medic: The show's first resident psychologist.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: Only appeared in one season.

Marcus Agyeman

• The Last of These Is Not Like the Others: The show has had driving instructors, a law enforcer, and psychologists, but Marcus is an insurance broker.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: Only appeared in one season.

Juliana Chiovitti

• Badass Driver: She came in first place in the Formula 2000 series.
• Expy: To Kelly Williams.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: Only appeared in one season.

Louisa Gembora

• Genius Bruiser: Not only is she the show's psychologist, but she drives a race car in her spare time.
• The Medic: The show's resident psychologist, and the first one to stay for more than one season.
• Put on a Bus: Left the show after Season 5.

Dan Bagyan

• We Hardly Knew Ye: Only appeared in one season.

Peter Mellor

• Put on a Bus: Left the show after Season 7.
• Un-person: Whereas both Scott and Dan were referred to by their full names in a Freeze-Frame Bonus in the penultimate episode of Season 13, Peter was just referred to as 'That South African guy from Seasons 5-7.'

Lauren Kennedy-Smith

• Expy: To Louis Gembora. Both are psychologists, and drive race cars.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: Only appeared in one season.

The Contestants

Chris Ferguson

• Bald of Awesome: Subverted as he 'won' the title.
• Gosh Darn It to Heck!: See quote above.
• Graceful Loser: Unlike a lot of other 'Worst Driver's', he took the title with no hard feelings and even chuckled a bit when it was announced he 'won'.
• Henpecked Husband: His wife Michelle did laugh at his struggles early on, but managed to be more supportive by Episode 3.
• Nervous Wreck: A lot of it can be contributed to the fact he only driven five times in the thirteen years he has owned a license.

Madalena Phillips

• Cheaters Never Prosper: Instead of looking for the items in the Scavenger Hunt Challenge, she asked people where to find those items. The experts later told her that the point of the challenge was for her to find them herself.
• Karma Houdini: Got out of being named the worst because her final drive and Chris's were about as bad as each other, but Madalena showed up for her drive with a hangover, which the panel decided was proof that she'd have done better than Chris if she were sober. In most later seasons she would likely have been named Canada's Worst Driver because she showed up with a hangover. To top it all off, her father bought her a new car because she was 'only' second worst.
• Spoiled Brat: Part of the reason she was such a bad driver was that she never really had to face the consequences of accidents; her rich parents paid her obscene insurance premium and replaced her cars whenever she totaled them.

Heather Reynolds

• Blind Without Them: Subverted as it was soon revealed that her prescription wasn't strong enough. However, it is revealed at the end of the season that 6 months later, she got a stronger prescription.
• Happily Married: To her husband.

Manuel Tejeda

• Friend to All Living Things: During the drive to rehab in the first episode he spent quite some time petting the alpacas at the farm where the drivers had to stop to get directions.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: He isn't too explosive compared to later contestants, but he does get frustrated when placed into tight situations. The show then decides to exploit this by tightening up a course deliberately for Manuel to see how he would react to such a situation. Manuel ended up turning in a decent performance that convinced the panel to graduate him in the penultimate episode.

David Chau

• Asian Driver: The first of this series.
• Backseat Driver: George usually makes all the decisions for David, which led to some hits and mistakes. However, by Episode 6, David began being more assertive and giving George orders.
• Belief Makes You Stupid: Not that he used it much as an excuse for his terrible driving, but he did state that 24 in Chinese culture is considered unlucky (he was 24 at the time of filming).
• Catchphrase: Invoked. Andrew made him say 'If I hear metal scraping on metal, I will stop' throughout the season as his mantra. In fact, it was saying that mantra that allowed him to graduate.
• Epic Fail: He somehow managed to wreck the car he was using (which was specifically chosen because it was hardy) driving through a wall made up of cardboard boxes. Fortunately, he was the last person taking the challenge.

Faith Ann Stone

• Distaff Counterpart: To Bob.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: While it doesn't look like she cares about rehab, the fact that she did come shows the need of improvement.
• Ignored Epiphany: She had multiple accidents that required metal plates inside her now, and she still drives recklessly. Later averted, as she eventually came to realize the stakes if she kept on driving dangerously.
• It Runs in the Family: If her intro video says anything, her family has some bad drivers that passed on their bad habits to the next driver.
• Reality Ensues: Due to having plates in her knees, Faith-Ann could not do the tire changing challenge as it required crouching. So, Joanne did the challenge for her.

Tatiana Rheaume

• Nervous Wreck: She was afraid of left turns.
• Obnoxious In-Laws: Subverted as Beth is supportive to Tatiana.
• Painfully Slow Projectile: Her slow runs can be a bit painful to watch, like her run on the 'Water Tank Challenge'.

Bob Coad

• The Bully: As his quote above states, he loves doing bumper tag, which is him speeding in front of a car that cut him off on the highway, then slamming the brakes in front of them.
• Hidden Depths: Got a 5/5 on the road sign test.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Might have been arrogant, but he did eventually take the lessons seriously.
• Jerkass Realization: After a few challenges, he realizes his behavior on the road was unacceptable and decided to do a 180 on his life.
• Spear Counterpart: To Faith-Ann.

Henrietta Gallant

• Blind Without Them: She had some trouble seeing while driving, but stubbornly refused to get glasses.
• Crying Wolf: She had a habit of quitting challenges whenever she felt stressed. When she suffered from panic attacks in the road test, she asked to stop, but Andrew demanded they continue until it got worse. Andrew did admit however years later that he should have believed her and ended the test earlier.
• Graceful Loser: Took her title with some pride, and even jokingly said that getting named the worst was worth it when she got to ride in a limousine back home.
• Heroic BSoD: Suffered such a severe one that Andrew had to stop her final road test, setting a precedent that any driver who fails to complete their road test will be named Canada's Worst Driver.

Michael Telford

• Adorkable: A major geek, and able to drop sci-fi and comic references into any conversation, but also manages to stay very charming and likable while doing so.
• Critical Research Failure (In-Universe): When he saw that he had to parallel park an RV, he immediately says that driving that requires an M class licenses. Andrew immediately clarifies to the audience that anyone with a G license can drive an RV.
• Genius Ditz: He is a knowledgeable person, and understands the lessons. But for some reason, he can't apply it to the driving.

Shannon Willemsen

• Babies Make Everything Better: She was four months pregnant when she was in rehab, which helped why she would come to improve as a driver.
• Captain Crash: To the point where she lost count of how many cars she totaled.
• Drunk Driver: It was revealed she was one of these in the past but had given up by the time she appeared on the show, as she was pregnant.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Shannon is hot headed, but she did take the lessons to heart. Also, there is a good reason as to why she chose to come to rehab, for her unborn child.
• Wham Line (In-Universe): Her quote above as before then, the show thought she was just a reckless driver.

Sean McConnell

• Drives Like Crazy: He loves speeding, to the point that he sped on a school zone. Michael would get a lot of mileage out of his SPEEEED license plate.
• Foil: To Colin. They're both in rehab for their arrogance and speeding habits. However, Sean took rehab more seriously than Colin and the result shows; Sean graduated, while Colin got expelled.
• Hidden Depths:
  • Knows a lot about car maintenance as the 'Camping Challenge' (where he reconnected the car battery after Colin's clowning around knocked a cable loose) and the 'Scavenger Hunt' (he was the fastest to change his flat tire) show.
  • Also revealed to have a stepson that is learning how to drive. So, in the 'Blindfold Challenge', he was the safest teacher to his niece who stopped 123 times per his instructions but was still able to make the time limit.
• Insane Troll Logic: See quote above. He later came to realize just how wrong this was, to the point where in the off-roading challenge he was one of the slowest and most cautious of the drivers.
• I Don't Know Mortal Kombat: A ranked player in online racing simulators who has serious driving issues, although it's mostly the speed limit he has a problem with.

Jodi Slobodesky

• Backseat Driver: Sam gave her a lot of unneeded advice that were mostly terrible. But unlike a lot of examples, she was willing to listen to them.
• 100% Adoration Rating: Not only was she well-liked by the other contestants, with even Colin's only Pet the Dog moment on the show being toward her, she was the first person in the show's history to get a unanimous graduation decision from the panel.
• Nervous Wreck: She didn't know what a green light meant!
• No-Damage Run: She was the best driver in her graduation episode.
• Took a Level in Badass: One she got her nerves worked out; she was the best driver this season.

Colin Sheppard

• Casanova Wannabe: Frequently hit on Shannon and her nominator Sara, to the point in the camping challenge he sat on his side window to impress Sara.
• Epic Fail: He is the first person ever to get kicked off on a Worst Driver series (this counts international versions).
• The Friend Nobody Likes: Put it this way, everybody was happy he got kicked off the show.
• Irony: He calls cops idiots, and yet he's studying to be one himself.
• Jerkass: Basically, he came to rehab just wanting to show off without learning anything.
• Karma Houdini:
  • Invoked. He stated in his intro video that he would frequently abuse his status as a Police Foundations student to get out of tickets.
  • After the show, he never got nailed for his multiple incidents prior, except for being forced to sell his car due to the multiple attention from the cops.
• Non-Gameplay Elimination: After four episodes of seeing Colin drive like a jackass, and being obvious that he doesn't care about rehab, Andrew expelled him and destroyed his car keys.
• Pet the Dog: The only shred of goodness he did was help Jodi with the Gas Station Challenge. But then he subverted it minutes later when he tried to block Michael off on the last spot.
• Reality Ensues: Not towards Colin specifically, but after Andrew destroyed his keys, the show got into trouble as it counted as destruction of property. As such, future seasons afterwards would have Andrew confiscate the nominee's licenses at the start of the season.
• Tempting Fate:
  • After Cam heard his opinions about police officers, he forwarded information on Colin and photographs of his car to the local police force. Colin ended up having to sell said car because it got so much attention from the cops.
  • During a Confession Cam segment in his final episode, he arrogantly claimed that Andrew would be handing over his keys shortly. Later that episode, Andrew did hand over said keys.. or rather, what was left after he destroyed them.

Karen Carson

• Backseat Driver: Her husband and nominator kept giving her unneeded advice. It gets to be a plot point in the 3rd episode when she failed the 'Wall Challenge' because she was pathologically used to listening to Andy's advice and Scott didn't say anything.
• The Informant: In a sense, she revealed during the driving distracted challenge that she calls the police if she saw distracted driving.

Matt Elkind

• Ascended Fanon (In-Universe): When it became clear that driving without being distracted made him better, the show had him drive on 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. It proved so effective on him that this challenge became a staple of the show in later seasons.
• Attention Deficit.. Ooh, Shiny!: He's the first driver on the show whose main problem is distracted driving. Fortunately, he learned quickly that it's dangerous to continue driving like that.
• Captain Crash: once drove through a department store display.
• Consolation Prize: Got a Bluetooth headset when he graduated, in order to keep him from using his cellphone at the wheel. Ironically, such headsets are themselves now considered to be just as dangerous as cellphones and have largely been supplanted by speakers and microphones built into the dashboard.

Jason Zhang

• Asian Driver: And he 'won'.
• Camp Gay: A mild example, with his husband, probably being nearer an outright example of this trope.
• Henpecked Husband: Showing that this trope can apply just as much to same-sex couples, his nominator was probably the worst Backseat Driver the show had seen up until that point. However, Jason didn't do any better in the final episode, when his husband had left for a family wedding, leaving Andrew to accompany him in the final challenges.
• Know When To Fold Them: After being named Canada's Worst Driver, he immediately gave up driving.

Shelby D'Souza

• Adorkable: One of the most earnest and likable candidates from the show's history; Andrew's favorite as of Ever, in fact.
• Hard Work Hardly Works: Played with. He did learn a lot in his time in rehab and did improve, but he was still too timid to drive full speed during the road test. Of course, it was nowhere near as bad as Jason's road test.
• Nervous Wreck: There's a reason for his quote above. Shelby just can't drive the speed limit.

Jennifer Kritzer

• Expy: Much like Shannon from the previous season, she was a young, reckless driver with something of a temper, who ended up becoming the final graduate of the season (albeit without a pregnancy being involved).

Ed Porter

• Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: His bad driving and bad attitude had wrecked his relationship with his nominator prior to going on the show, but they reconciled over the course of the season.
• Ascended Fanon (In-Universe): Possibly an unexpected example of this, but fishtailing his vehicle when doing the reverse drag race challenge resulted in the Reverse Flick Challenge for later seasons.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: Up to Eleven. He can make his kids feel ill when he's driving, and even stated he wanted machine guns on his hood!
• Working with the Ex: His nominator is his ex-girlfriend.

Billie-Jean Leslie

• Always Someone Better: She was passed over three times in a row because the three below each had a breakthrough that allowed them to graduate. It nearly ended up being four, as Shelby was considered to have done better in the episode where she eventually did graduate, but he made a severe blunder on the last challenge that caused her to get the nod instead.
• The Ditz: She spends more time working on her makeup in the car than on the actual road.
• Killer Outfit: Her initial driving footwear is less than effective, but she managed to fix it by the time she graduated.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Beautiful!: Fully admitted that she flirted with her driving instructor to get her license. Andrew says that he hopes the instructor was watching this.

Marnie Maddison

• Nervous Wreck: She had such a lack of confidence at the wheel that she went through eight learning permits, and only got an actual license a couple of months before going on the show.
• No-Damage Run: Managed to pass almost all the challenges in her graduation episode (the only challenge she didn't pass was the Balance Beam Pair challenge).

Thomas Hobbs

• Badass Driver: He nearly passed every challenge he took (he failed one out of not taking the lessons), and later won his first official race as soon as he graduated.
• Drives Like Crazy: He loves street racing, which is why he was nominated in the first place.

Denice Koke

• Nervous Wreck: Her fear of driving got to the point that her son had to be pulled from hockey.
• Self-Deprecation: She made 85 negative comments about her driving on the way to rehab.

Ashley van Ham

• Babies Make Everything Better: She's in rehab so she can be a safer driver for her son, and wanted to graduate early in time for his first birthday. Sadly, she didn't make it in time.
• Crippling Overspecialization: She was the best technical driver of this season, but her inability to control her temper hindered her performance. It was also the reason she 'won' the title as the experts were concerned that her temper could cause her to make lethal moves without properly focusing.
• Destructive Romance: She and her husband tended to argue over the slightest thing, to the point where she would likely have avoided being named the worst if she'd simply gone onto the show with a different nominator.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: Mostly it was aimed towards her husband, but she did tend to blow up at Andrew on occasion, which likely did her no favors when he got the tie-breaking vote over who was the worst for this season.
• Sore Loser: She reacted terribly to being named the worst this year, to the point she wanted to move to another continent.

Emily Wang

• Asian Driver: Was the Runner Up this season.
• Blind Without Them: Became clear early on that she needed glasses, but didn't get them until the second-last episode.
• Hard Work Hardly Works: Averted; despite being consistently the worst performer (not counting Donna) throughout the season, she avoided being named the worst because she at least tried to improve, unlike Ashley.
• Sore Loser: For some bizarre reason she decided that she deserved to graduate in the penultimate episode despite being the only one of the drivers to outright fail two challenges that week. When Teagan graduated, she took the decision particularly badly, even compared to Ashley and Amy.

Amy-Lee Wisniewski

• Happily Married: Zig-zagged with her husband Bob. They do of course bicker, but not to the extreme like Ashley and her husband do. They even celebrated their wedding anniversary while on the show.
• Nervous Wreck: In some ways, she was the Yin to Ashley's Yang, as it was obvious quite early on that she was somewhat technically capable (to the point where she nearly became the first graduate), but in her case, it was nerves and confidence that were the problem.
• Tears of Fear -> Tears of Joy: In the beginning, she cried due to her fear of driving, but by the end of the season, she was crying because she was improving a lot.

Teagan Cramer

• Butt-Monkey: Wasn't looked too highly by the other nominees due to his age, and none of the women were happy when he graduated over them in the seventh episode.
• Cheaters Never Prosper: Got caught trying to remove the head rest during the 'Shoulder Check Challenge'.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: None of the other nominees seemed to particularly like him, probably from an assumption he was just a stereotypical boy racer. While he could be a little cocky at times, he wasn't nearly as bad in this regard as Thomas from the previous season (to say nothing of Colin from Season 2).
• No-Damage Run: He passed all three of the challenges in his graduation episode, and was even the best driver in two of the three.
• Reality Ensues: Since Teagan was 18 at the time of filming, he wasn't legally allowed to have a rental car, so Andrew reluctantly let him drive his own truck to rehab. Also, despite graduating, Teagan had to leave in a taxi.

Lindsay Kloss

• The Ditz: She could drive quite well when she stayed focused; it was her short attention span and habit of going blank in stressful situations that landed her in rehab. When she had addressed both, however, she proved quite a capable driver.
• The Generic Girl: Despite being around till Episode 6, she never really got much screen time outside of challenges.

Donna Hicks

• Defiant to the End: Even when she was shown footage of her terrible performances, and was placed on medical review, Donna continued to insist on driving.
• Drunk Driver: Openly admitted that she would have several drinks while playing bingo, after which she'd drive home drunk. And her son pointed out that if anything, she was drastically understating how much she usually drinks and drives.
• Epic Fail:
  • Episode 2 had two moments of failure:
    • She managed to break five traffic laws at once during the street parallel parking challenge, when she got out of the car to yell at a driver who was honking at her. Had she been caught; she'd have gotten almost $600 in fines.
    • She skidded out of control on the icy corner challenge by hitting the gas (thinking it was the brake), and left skid marks on the grass.
  • Before Angelina or Sholom came around, Donna had the worst track record of challenges with only 1 pass out of the 8 she did.
• Foreshadowing: In the assessment challenge, it's revealed that her nominator and son has a heart condition. Considering a condition like that is sometimes hereditary..
• Medal of Dishonor: When she was sent home, Andrew branded her the absolute worst driver they had ever seen on the show until that point. Luckily for Donna, she would only hold that dishonor for a year.. though unfortunately for her, she was evidently no longer a driver anyway by that point, making it moot.
• Non-Gameplay Elimination: Because of her angina attack, along with her lying on her medical form by not mentioning the condition (which would likely have invalidated the show's insurance policy), they had to medically expel her from rehab.
• Reality Ensues: Since she had angina attack in a challenge, the show couldn't keep her around out of fear she would have another one (the courses are already stressful enough). Also, Cam and Dan, as part of their professions, called their respective districts to let them know about her condition and placed her on medical review (which judging from her angry email to the show, she lost).
• Wham Shot: Her angina attack in the water tank challenge.

Ken Westwood

• Drives Like Crazy: He actually street raced on the way to rehab, which almost got the show to be shut down! Andrew was not happy when he saw Ken pull up to rehab after finding out the incident.
  Andrew: 'I don't want to see you drive. You drive like an ass. Get out.'
• Hidden Depths: The reason he came to rehab is that he could be a better driver for his quadriplegic wife.
• It's All About Me: Psychologist Gembora believed the behavior he exhibited is like Narcissistic Personality Disorder.
• Manchild: The oldest male in the season (and behind only Donna as the oldest overall), but acts like a teenager. It was exemplified when he challenged Ashley, who was barely a third his age, to a street race on the way to rehab.
• Screw This, I'm Out of Here!: Wanted to leave in the second episode when he felt he wasn't improving, but stuck around. Not that it mattered since he would graduate in the next episode.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: He and his nominator John trade insults, but they do care about each other.

Curt Higham

• Attention Deficit.. Ooh, Shiny!: The reason why he's in rehab.
• Happily Married: To his husband, who was also his nominator. He and Ashley were practically the perfect contrast when it came to showing the effects of having a supportive spouse as opposed to one who you're constantly at odds with.
• No-Damage Run: Passed all three challenges in his graduation episode.
• Straight Gay: Had they not mentioned that his nominator also happened to be his husband, there'd have been no clue one way or the other to his preferences.

Angelina Marcantognini

• Captain Oblivious: In the lane change rally, both she and her nominator were completely unaware that they were the only people still left on the track (all the other drivers had left the track, and so had Andrew, as the last person left automatically fails), and even when they did realize, Angelina just carried on driving in circles.
• Confusing Multiple Negatives: She said the quote above after her final drive. The panel, naturally, would have much preferred her statement if there had only been one 'not' in it.
• Defiant to the End: Even after her challenge failures and terrible road test, she still refused to give up driving. While she would almost certainly have been named the worst regardless, as Mike did agree to give up driving and there was no way on Earth they could have named Arun the worst, her refusal to even contemplate doing it ensured that she'd 'win' this season.
• Dumb Blonde: By the time she was called on to do a challenge, she had usually forgotten the lesson that had been taught beforehand. Or more specifically, she didn't really pay attention to the lessons in the first place, not really grasping why they were important.
• Epic Fail: She only passed one challenge out of twenty-three, which is the worst success rate the show ever had. Sholom from Season 11 would later equal this record, though only ended up as third worst in his season.
• Medal of Dishonor: In addition to her record-breaking number of challenge failures, as of the start of filming of Canada's Worst Driver Ever, Andrew believed she was the absolute worst driver to be on the show until that point.
• Nervous Wreck: She might be the most anxiety ridden driver the show ever had, resulting in her having to take anti-anxiety pills. Unfortunately, viewers who watched Canada's Worst Driver Ever know that this trope goes From Bad to Worse.

Mike Butt

• Ascended Fanon: Another In-Universe example. He talked about 'shopping cart hockey', where one uses a car to attempt to push a shopping cart into a goal. It was used as a challenge.
• Drives Like Crazy: Par for the course on this show, but Mike was a particularly bad example, to the point where Cam openly described him as 'nuts' after he was shown driving double the speed limit on the night driving challenge.
• Failed a Spot Check: The grandmother during the final drive. Fortunately, Andrew saw her and warned Mike in time.
• Heroic BSoD: Not that he hadn't already been doing horribly on his road test, but after he nearly ran over an old woman he completely fell apart, to the point where it was a small miracle that Andrew didn't force him to stop.
• Know When To Fold Them: After a terrible road test where he almost ran over bicyclists and an old woman, he cut up his license when given the option in front of the panel.
• Real-Life Relative: He's the nephew of Canadian comedian Brent Butt, who you know from Corner Gas.

Arun Suryanarayanan

• Asian Driver: Well from India, but the trope still counts.
• Bollywood Nerd: An engineering graduate, and apparently quite knowledgeable in general. Just not on how to drive, or how to speak to your passenger, although he did improve drastically in both regards.
• Flawless Victory: He's the first person ever to drive the final road test without causing any ticketable offenses, and came very close to finishing the Mega Challenge with no errors.
• Happily Married: Zig-zagged at first, as he treated his wife quite well most of the time, but could occasionally display behavior that was flat-out sexist, particularly in the lane change rally. As the season went on, he started behaving much more reasonably toward her, and by the end of the season, he was thankful for her nominating him.
• Insane Troll Logic: Whether it was because he started driving in India, or because of other unexplained reasons, he thought driving in two lanes at once was a good idea. It gets to be a plot point in the lane changing challenge where he reverts to it, and gets removed out of the challenge out of concern for the other drivers,
• No-Damage Run: In the last episode; He was the only one of the final three to pass the Reverse Slalom Challenge, had the best run on the Mega Challenge, and his perfect final road test. Andrew wasted no time in handing back Arun's license after that.
• Took a Level in Badass: In the beginning, Arun was one of the weakest drivers next to Angelina, but by Episode 6, he was passing more challenges, culminating in his perfect road test. Andrew even called him the poster boy of the rehab center.

Jakob Poirier

• Censor Box: Parodied with him as his censor box is the anarchy symbol.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: More pronounced in the early episodes, but most of his challenge failures tended to come from his getting frustrated and losing his temper, and thereby his focus.
• Hidden Depths: Despite his anti-aircraft attitude, he managed to score the highest on the road signs and rules tests.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Rough around the edges, but does care about learning to drive safer, and has a strong relationship with his nominator.
• Spoiled Brat: Not to Jo Jo's extent, but his car and accident repairs were paid by his father, not him.
• You Gotta Have Blue Hair: Sports red dyed hair.

Father Giles Joly

• Adorkable: He has his moments.
• Belief Makes You Stupid: More like 'Belief Makes You Slow'. He wasn't dumb by any means, he just had problems with the speed limit.
• Busman's Holiday: Presumably he thought his time on the show would be a break from his usual priestly duties, let alone something like having to console a person who suffers a death in the family, as Crystal did in the week when she left.
• Cool Old Guy: The oldest contestant this season, and everybody liked him.
• Good Shepherd: A much better priest than he was a driver.
• Manly Tears: At the end of the montage of condolence messages to Crystal from the other drivers and nominators, Father Giles just sat there weeping silently.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Was always referred to as Father Giles on the show.
• Preacher Man: A Catholic priest.
• Signature Move: His 'thumbs up' reactions. Andrew and the remaining contestant’s lampshade this when he graduates.

Crystal Hubley Farao

• Blind Without Them: She had terrible eyesight in the right eye, but managed to get a contact lens for it.
• Downer Ending: She left rehab because her brother-in-law died in a car accident. The ending of that episode was very sullen, with no one graduating, and the credits removing its music out of respect.
• Dude, Not Funny!: Her joking attitude over her poor driving is this. However, after her brother-in-law died from an accident, she realized that her driving was not funny anymore.
• Non-Gameplay Elimination: She could go home at the end of the fifth episode, after discovering that her brother-in-law had been killed in a traffic accident.
• Workaholic: One of the problems she has is that she treats her car as a second office.

Melissa Cook

• Backseat Driver: Between his yelling and insults to Melissa, Wil might by the worst nominator the show ever had.
• Domestic Abuse: Regardless of whether she suffered this elsewhere in her personal life, she suffered more than her fair share of this from her husband while at the wheel, to the point where Andrew forced her husband to listen to recordings of his abuse. Once he saw the error of his ways and stopped doing this, she quickly proved to be one of the most competent drivers ever seen on the show and quickly graduated.
• Jerkass: Wil.
• Jerkass Realization: Wil was stunned and horrified at the comments he spoke to Melissa when forced to listen to them.

JoJo Kopty

• Captain Crash: In the two years she had a license, she committed 13 accidents. One incident had her and her nominator in the hospital.
• Consolation Prize: She got a Mercedes-Benz when she graduated!
• Insane Troll Logic: See quote above.
• No-Damage Run: Like Kurt from the previous season, she passed every challenge in the episode where she graduated.

Lance Morin

• The Dandy: He looked very fashionable. At least early on.
  • Clothing Damage: By the end of the season, he was wearing a ripped wife beater shirt.
• The Ditz: Thought that there were 365 degrees in a circle because there are 365 days in a year. It's not exactly clear whether he also thought every circle gains an extra degree every four years.
• Epic Fail: His inability to complete the final drive and then mouthing off at the experts afterward when they suggested that he get psychological help for his nerves resulted in the first-ever instance of the experts deciding that one driver was so clearly the worst that there was no need for a discussion over the decision (despite Dale being bad in general). Note that even with Angelina the previous year, Cam had disagreed (at least initially) and thought that Mike was worse, and while the entire panel in Season 3 had agreed that Jason was the actual worst, there was still some discussion as to whether Shelby should have gotten the title, seeing how Jason had already made it clear he was considering quitting driving.
• Nervous Wreck: A strong contender for show's biggest example of this trope, to the point where he suffered a massive panic attack just minutes into his final drive, which had to be abandoned then and there, with Lance subsequently being taken to the hospital.

Dale Pitton

• Dumb Blonde: Much like Angelina, she would often forget a lesson when the time came to apply it, though in her case it seemed to be a case of her memory being legitimately poor, rather than just not bothering to pay attention.
• Dude, Not Funny! (In-Universe): She thought it would be funny if she tried to run over Andrew during the Donut's Challenge. Neither Andrew nor her nephew thought it was funny.
• Screw This, I'm Out of Here!: She claimed in Episode 6 that she had dental problems (bleeding gums to be specific), and wanted to leave rehab. However, if she was medically evacuated, it would mean that Dean (who was the best that episode) would stay longer. However, after much convincing, she reluctantly decided to stay and let Dean go. It's unknown if her condition was just an excuse to leave the show.
• Your Other Left: In both the lane change rally and her final drive, she indicated left before turning right on at least one occasion.

Brad Hengerer

• Backseat Driver: Donna, but mostly because she is still trying to get used to not driving a lot anymore (she had a very serious shoulder injury that resulted in the loss of use of her right arm).
• Berserk Button: Brad hated that Lance drove like an idiot during the lane change rally since he lost his mom to something like this.
• Character Development: As always, the show does help develop drivers to become better, and Brad did get more confident behind the wheel. But Donna got the most development this season as she learned to let Brad make his own decisions as a driver, and became more supportive of him. By the end of the season, she was cheering that Brad earned his graduation.
• Henpecked Husband: His wife was very overbearing, and insisted on directing him throughout the challenges, even though this was counter-productive, as the experts prefer to graduate people who can think for themselves.
• Mandatory Unretirement: He was banned from driving by Donna and his father-in-law due to his multiple accidents in the past. But because of Donna's accident, and his father-in-law's heart attack, he's forced back behind the wheel.
• Reality Ensues: Because of Donna's shoulder problems, she wasn't allowed to accompany Brad on certain challenges that had the car rocking around a lot.
• Tiny Guy, Huge Girl.

Jamie Giberson

• Apologizes a Lot: Especially when she did something wrong in a challenge.
• Epic Fail: She managed to break the front window of the car during the Eye of the Needle Challenge (which by that time, the show never considered this a possibility).
• Nervous Wreck: Not to nearly the same extent as Lance, but she was very easily stressed out, and tended to constantly apologize whenever she did something wrong in the challenges.

Dean Sibanda

• Drives Like Crazy: Like Scott, his drive to rehab was stopped because of his speeding and generally dangerous behavior. Unlike Scott, he soon shaped up and started acting more reasonably.
• Epic Fail: He managed to flood the car's engine with a hard stop after the first straightaway during the Water Tank Challenge. He didn't even get to the precision driving parts.
• No-Damage Run: Passed all the challenges in his graduation episode.

Diane Akers

• In-Series Nickname: 'Slow Diane,' owing to her extremely nervous and over-cautious nature. She soon managed to shake it off and graduate.
• Nervous Wreck: She had a fear of driving up the speed limit. However, She was able to get past it in her graduation episode.
• No-Damage Run: Of a sort. She did pass two of the challenges with no problems, but she barely passed the Swerve and Avoid Challenge even though she brushed the barrier.

Paul Thurston

• Badass Biker: Oh, most definitely! In fact, as recently as a few years before being on the show he had been a professional stunt biker. Though the reason he was on the show was to become a better car driver.
• The Big Guy: He and his nominator were large.
• Chekhov's Skill: As a motorcyclist, Paul knows how a clutch works, so he was able to pass the teeter totter challenge with ease.
• Cluster F-Bomb: His quote above.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Yes, he's loud and a bit blunt, but is very pleasant with the other nominees (minus Scott), and Andrew called him a model student for this season.

Scott Schurink

• Babies Make Everything Better: Subverted. While his 15-month-old son is partly the reason why he's here (and it's even mentioned he does drive safely with his son in the car), his attitude never got better.
• The Dog Bites Back: After seeing Scott drive stupidly, and laughing off his failures, his nominator Danny had enough and canceled his insurance (that they both share) immediately.
• Dramatic Irony: He mocked Andrew's warning about his attitude with the quote above. But after his insurance was pulled, and his actions reported, he teared up.
• Epic Fail:
  • He's the first person to not complete the rehab drive because of making 37 moving violations and driving 50km/h past the speed limit.
  • Getting kicked out of rehab by your nominator and on the second episode must count for something.
• Expy: He's basically an older Colin.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: It's unclear exactly what he thought he was going to achieve by bragging at length about the various criminal offenses he'd committed over the years, but the actual result was that Cam contacted the Calgary city police — who had been unaware of Scott's past, as his offences were committed where he had previously lived — and advised them to be on the lookout for him.
• Jerkass: Like Colin before him, he had no intention of learning anything. He also spoke of his numerous criminal offenses with pride.
• List of Transgressions: For some reason, he listed off all the driving infractures he caused. These include: Drunk Driving, Driving over the speed limit, Driving under suspension, a hit and run, and driving using a friends license while under house arrest (and getting pulled over drunk causing the poor friend to pay the fines). Danny admits that out of all of them, he wasn't going to mention the last one because it's really illegal ^note .
• Loophole Abuse: Managed to get on the show despite the high prices he'd have been facing to insure himself by doing so on his nominator, Danny's insurance. When Danny eventually pulled the plug on said insurance, the panel slammed the loophole shut and told Scott to either pay for his own insurance or be expelled. Not surprisingly, Scott was soon on his way home in a taxi.
• Never My Fault: To this day, he insists that he was portrayed unfairly on the show, and is nothing like that. The speeding convictions he's picked up since then would seem to disagree with him on that count.
• Non-Gameplay Elimination: When Danny canceled his insurance, it effectively meant Scott could not drive on the show's courses. As a result, he was expelled from the show.
• Pet the Dog: The one nice thing that he did do on the show was helping the other drivers navigate the mobile home reversing challenge, and even trying to comfort Lance when he broke down in tears.
• Suddenly Significant Rule: To be a contestant, you must be a legal driver, i.e. having insurance and a valid driver's license. Scott was the first person to lose his insurance while on the show (it was his roommate Danny's insurance, and Danny was fed up with Scott's completely unrepentant attitude about his bad driving). Since Scott was no longer a legal driver, he promptly got the boot.
• We Used to Be Friends: As of 2015, he and Danny are no longer on speaking terms.

Shirley Sampson

• Back Seat Driver: Her daughter Janis has these moments, and unfortunately was the downfall of Shirley in the parking challenge when she grabbed the steering wheel (which is very illegal). Other times, Janis tries not to say anything and gets annoyed when Shirley asks for help.
• Bittersweet Ending: Was named Canada's Worst Driver this season based on a terrible road test, but Andrew told her to keep driving since he saw a lot of improvement from her.
• Cool Old Lady: The oldest out of the nominees, and was very nice to everyone.
• Epic Fail: Got a 1/10 on the road sign test, but admittedly, it was mostly that she knew only outdated info.
• Hard Work Hardly Works: Sadly, despite being the best in the challenges, she couldn't properly apply it to public roads.
• Running Gag: Always expect her to hug Andrew whenever she passes a challenge.

Sly Grosjean

• Big Eater: He really loves eating behind the wheel.
• Crippling Overspecialization: An unusual inversion; in most of the challenges he bordered on being Giftedly Bad. The one thing that he could do well was normal everyday driving, which saved him from being named the worst.
• Epic Fail: Even among his catastrophically awful challenge performances, his trough run stood out, as it ended with him managing to tear out the car's tailpipe and puncture the gas tank.
• Fat Idiot: Put it this way, there's a reason more than one fan of the show has likened him to Peter Griffin, and it's not just the physical resemblance between the two.
• Foregone Conclusion: Defied. After a predictably awful Mega Challenge performance, Andrew suggested that he should just accept that he was going to be named Canada's Worst Driver and forego the public drive for safety reasons, but Sly refused to do this as he didn't want to look like a quitter. As it turned out, his performance on the drive was good enough to prevent him from being named the worst.
• Genius Ditz: As mentioned above, Sly proved utterly incompetent at nearly every single challenge..but can drive well on public roads, provided he isn't distracted.
• Literal-Minded: He takes things very literally, to the point of having too narrow a focus. Andrew comments that he's so literal, 'it could literally kill him.'
• What Were You Thinking?: Oh, Sly really got an earful from Cam regarding his poor decision in the Trough Challenge.

Aaron Cheshire

• Backseat Driver: Aaron tried to seek out his father’s advice, but Lee was giving out not too helpful advice. By the second half of the season, Aaron decides to tune out his father and make his own decisions.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: More so with Aaron than with Shirley, since he was able to complete the road test, proving to himself and the panel that he can drive with confidence again and become the final graduate.
• Hidden Depths: Surprised even himself during the reaction test when he was the fastest in the third test.
• 100% Adoration Rating: Was loved by everyone on the show, and had a lot of fans while on the show, making him a very big favorite of the show to this day.
• Inspirationally Disadvantaged: 6 years ago, Aaron was in a car accident that left him in a coma for 2 months. His presence on the show helped show that people in such a serious accident can rebuild what they lost in terms of skill.
• I Choose to Stay: He could have graduated anytime he wanted to (especially on Episode 5), but he wanted to stay to prove to himself he can improve more and more.

Afiya Lassy

• Belief Makes You Stupid: Maybe not outright stupid per se, but it certainly made her a worse driver, as she seemed to believe that divine forces would prevent her from getting into any accident.
• Break the Haughty: Afiya came to rehab to prove to her concerned friends and family she wasn't a bad driver. But she changed her tone when the season continued after the Distracted Driving Challenge.
• Drives Like Crazy: Does have a habit of speeding, and like Scott and Dean from last season, she got pulled from the drive to rehab because of it.
• Never My Fault: Claimed she had done nothing wrong when pulled over for going 50kms over the speed limit.
• Sassy Black Woman: On her worst days. She had quite the Hair-Trigger Temper, and wasn't afraid to aim it at Andrew whenever she thought he was being too harsh toward her.
• Stepford Smiler: Afiya constantly smiled even when talking about her abysmal record, but revealed it was to cover up her fear of responsibility.

Tab Parks

• Insane Troll Logic: Actually believed that smoking, eating, and texting while driving can be done with enough training. Fortunately, she learned the hard way that it's dangerous in the distracted driving challenge.
• Nervous Wreck: Her fear of driving is so severe she can actually shake in fear behind the wheel. After a session with Shyamala however, she managed to calm her anxiety down.
• No-Damage Run: Passed all the challenges in her graduation episode.

Ben Reiman

• Attention Deficit.. Ooh, Shiny!: He not only gets distracted while driving, he dozes off while driving.
• Class Clown: Admits he was one when he did driving school years ago, and regrets not paying attention before.
• Happily Married: To his wife (and nominator).
• Nice Hat: Was almost never seen without his flat cap. Even when high-speed tennis balls were being launched toward him in the reflexes test, it stayed perched on his head throughout.

Lauri Bencharski

• Friend to All Living Things: And it's the reason why's she's here. She loves bringing her pets on drives, and has one of her dogs on her neck! Case in point, she was doing good on the assessment test, but when Andrew introduced her to stuffed animals that represented her pets, her performance degraded.
• I Choose to Stay: Wanted to stay another week after Episode 2 despite being the better of the eight in the challenges. The panel honored her wishes and graduated Jon over her.
• No-Damage Run: Passed all the challenges in her graduation episode.

Jon Parsons

• Drives Like Crazy: His drive to rehab would have been stopped for speeding, if not for the fact that he had attended rehab in a two-seater sports car, meaning that there was no cameraman to stop the drive. He quickly stopped doing this after meeting Aaron and seeing first-hand what the results could be.
• Jerkass Realization: After meeting with Aaron.

Kevin Simmons

• Cheaters Never Prosper: He tried to cheat a pass out of the 'Shoulder Check Challenge' by turning his left shoulder to see what color the column is (the nominees are looking for green) and then turning to the right lane. He failed that challenge because of it.
• Crippling Overspecialization: Only passed two challenges in rehab, and both had to do with stunt driving maneuvers, which have the least applicability outside of the show
• Defiant to the End: Even after his terrible road test, Kevin stated he would continue to drive. This resulted in him being the joint winner with Flora.
• Handicapped Bad Ass: Oh very subverted as he only passed two challenges.
• Hidden Depths: A classic car lover who managed to identify each of the cars' make and model for the gas station challenge by sight, and was able to identify car issues better than other contestants. He also did the tire change quicker than any contestant.
• Insane Troll Logic: When told by Andrew that a few people who were on the show gave up driving, he called them idiots and declared he would continue to drive even if he was named Canada's Worst Driver.
• Never My Fault: He would blame his shortcomings as a driver by his glass eye. Though as Andrew pointed out, he should have turned his head to the right more to compensate for it.
• Straight Gay: Accompanied by his boyfriend, yet displayed no camp qualities otherwise.

Flora Wang

• Asian Driver: And she was the Co-Winner alongside Kevin.
• Backseat Driver: Her nominator Frank gave her bad advice and tried to interfere with her performance several times. While it was hinted that Flora tried to shut him up about it, she never fully got him to, and she relied more and more on him as the season continued.
• Captain Oblivious: Her Public Road Test had her clueless on anything she was doing wrong.
• Defiant to the End: Like Kevin, she refused to even consider giving up driving. Had either one of them done so, they would have avoided the title.
• Distaff Counterpart: To Jason from Season 3. Like him, she picked up more than her share of badgering and bad advice from her husband. And just like him, she was an equally terrible driver even when her husband wasn't in the car, leading to her being named the (joint-)worst.
• Epic Fail: Her Eye of the Needle performance stands out as perhaps the worst in the show's entire history, as she spun off the track at 140km/h^note . It was pure luck that neither she nor her husband were seriously hurt, or even killed. Afterwards, that part of the rehab center track was named after her.
• One-Hit Wonder (In-Universe): She did well enough in the second episode that she would have been a serious contender for the first graduate of the season, had she not asked to stay in rehab. After that, she never did well enough to be even remotely considered for graduation.

Diane Zbierski

• Cluster F-Bomb: In the beginning, she does it a lot, but it died down as the season continued.
• Flawless Victory: Apart from Arun from Season 5, she had by far and away the best final road test in the show's entire history, not making a single error. It was good enough to ensure that neither Flora nor Kevin would graduate irrespective of how well their own final drives went, as Diane had done so much better than them throughout rehab (not that it mattered, given how terrible their final drives were).
• Gratuitous French: Given she's from Quebec, she will sometimes slip into her native tongue when flustered.
• Happily Married: To her husband (and nominator). In fact, their relationship improved a lot during rehab making them even more happily married.
• Took a Level in Badass: In the beginning, she was struggling with challenges and looked like she didn't care if she got the title. But by the end, she not only was the best out of them, she became one of the best drivers the show ever had.

Margherita Donato

• Backseat Driver: Her nominator, Cheryl was an unusual example of this, in that she kept telling Margherita to disregard the experts' advice and just drive the way she was used to doing. This saw her come within an inch of becoming the first nominator to be kicked out of rehab.
• Bribing Your Way to Victory: Fully admitted that she bribed her driving instructor in order to get her license.
• Killer Outfit: She wore high heel shoes and pumps in the first half, with the show routinely telling her that it's dangerous with those types of shoes (you can't feel the pedal properly). By the time she graduated, she was wearing flat-heeled shoes.
• Nervous Wreck: Not so much as a lot of drivers, but her performance does fluctuate depending on what mood she's in (Episode 7 is a prime example).

Azim Kanji

• The Napoleon: The shortest male on this season, but also gets frustrated when driving because he tends to overthink things. Once he stopped, he became calmer.
• Nervous Wreck: He developed a bald spot due to his stress of driving.
• No-Damage Run: Managed to pass all three of the challenges in his graduation episode.
• The Smart Guy: Showcased it during the 'Golf Ball Challenge'.

Klyne Postnikoff

• Drives Like Crazy: Klyne constantly speeds, texts while driving, and as a result, has had ten accidents in just two years as a licensed driver. His drive to the rehab center would have been stopped for doing over 130 km/h in the oncoming lane, if not for the fact that he was only a few miles from the rehab center anyway.
• Heel–Face Turn: Both Klyne and his mother both changed their behavior on the show; Klyne's reckless driving and Maureen becoming less of an enabler.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He initially looked to be an Expy to both Colin and Scott given his poor performance in the assessment challenge, and his poor attitude. But, he did better his attitude in the next episode, landing him into this trope.
• Spoiled Brat: Thanks to his mom (and nominator) enabling him to drive like an idiot.
• What the Hell, Hero?:
  • He was called out by the panel in the first episode based on his poor driving history.
  • Maureen was called out by Andrew during the 'Figure Eight Challenge' when she gave Klyne an 'A' for effort even though he was doing poorly.

Dallas Sam

• Dude, Where's My Respect?: Almost failed to graduate, as the experts preferred the idea of graduating Diane, whose attitude they felt was safer than Dallas's. Andrew pointed out that Dallas had done much better in the challenges, and eventually persuaded the panel to graduate her.
• Nervous Wreck: Not as bad as a lot of the other drivers, and Andrew believed that her major problem was a lack of confidence in herself.
• Perky Goth: Had a fair few piercings and tattoos, along with a pretty Gothic wardrobe, but was otherwise upbeat. If anything, her initial problem was her nerves.

Robert Cardenas

• Insane Troll Logic: He claims he doesn't go the speed limit because whoever made speed limits made a mistake.
• Painfully Slow Projectile: Robert hates driving fast. He drives 45 no matter where he drives and that includes the interstate. As mentioned in Insane Troll Logic, he just thinks that speed limits are a mistake. He ends up overcoming this when Andrew gets him to drive faster down a straightaway and get him to realize that driving fast isn't so bad after all.
• Spear Counterpart: To Season 6's Diane. Though he manages to graduate earlier than her.

• The Bus Came Back: Nine people who never graduated (5 'Winners' and 4 Runner Ups) came back this season for a second chance of redemption and avoid the title of Canada's Worst Driver Ever.

Kevin Simmons

• Arc Words: Throughout the season, Kevin has repeated that if he was named the Worst Ever, he would give up his keys and licenses. He almost tried to subvert it in the final episode, but Andrew and Lenny made him go through with it.
• Captain Crash: In between seasons, Kevin has gotten into a serious car accident that left him with whiplash. It was used as Cam’s argument as why he was named the Worst Ever.
• Captain Oblivious: Taken to ridiculous levels in the final drive, where he not only tried to turn across two lanes at once at least a half-dozen times but failed to notice that he had driven into oncoming traffic. The latter was the last straw for Andrew, who immediately stopped the drive.
• Epic Fail: While several previous drivers had failed to complete the final road test (Henrietta, Angelina, and Lance became too stressed to continue their drives, and Ashley's was stopped by mechanical failure), Kevin was the first instance of a driver doing so badly that Andrew forced them to stop despite their being willing to continue.
  • He failed the straight-line reverse challenge, going forward.
• Failed a Spot Check: His intro video for this season has him not seeing a large truck making a left turn that he was about to hit, if it weren't for Lenny.
• For Want of a Nail: Kevin came shockingly close to graduating in Episode four, after passing the first two challenges. The only things that prevented it were a) an abysmal run at the eye of the needle, and b) Angelina's Non-Gameplay Elimination.
• Know When to Fold 'Em: Averted. Despite being name the worst and cutting his license up, Kevin still drives
• Insane Troll Logic: Demolished half the course when he could take the reversing challenge forwards, along with bursting one of the car's tires and breaking a wing mirror. He still proudly proclaimed that he had passed, leaving the experts totally speechless, and getting a major tongue-lashing from Andrew and Lenny.
• Medal of Dishonor: He is officially Canada's Worst Driver. Ever.
• Only Sane Man: Lenny. He has gotten more assertive during the off season, and is more likely to call out Lenny on his bullshit more than last time.
• Reformed, but Rejected: He wrote a letter to the judges saying he was ready to take accountability, but failed each challenge that episode and his second letter to the judges was called out as deflecting.
• Retcon: The show seems to ignore Flora as Co-Winner with Kevin last year, as Kevin is called the worst driver of Season 8.
• Sore Loser: After being named the worst, he initially refused to even accept the trophy, much less burn his license.
• Spear Counterpart: Strangely enough, this season he seemed to turn into this for Shirley of all people. Unfortunately for him, it was Shirley as she had been in Season 7, not this year; he passed the second-most challenges after Michael, but was spectacularly dreadful on his final drive.
• Tempting Fate: It's obvious that when he promised to destroy his driving license and sell his car if he failed to graduate, he never thought he would end up having to go through with it.
• Took a Level in Badass: Subverted; he did a lot better on the challenges this time around, but ended up doing far worse when it really mattered in the road test, which caused him to be named the worst.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Was considerably more petulant and ruder this season than in Season 8

Dale Pitton

• Cheaters Never Prosper: It's kind of speculated that Dale intentionally left rehab and injured her hand just to get out of the final three. It didn't really matter however as her poor track record got her pulled back in the finale's ending.
• Dumb Blonde: To a far worse extent than when she previously appeared on the show. She had gotten so bad that Cam concluded she was no longer mentally competent enough to drive and contacted the licensing authorities to request that her license is put up for medical review (in much the same way that he did with Donna in Season 4).
• I Reject Your Reality: She made a weird and nonsensical speech to the panel in Episode 7 about 'Personal Realities'. However, all she did was prove to the experts that she isn't mentally fit to drive anymore.
• Non-Gameplay Elimination: Subverted. She was expelled in the second-last episode after trying to quit rehab and injuring her hand badly enough to keep her out of the final drive, but she was brought back to be potentially named the worst anyway.
• Put on a Bus: Her original nominator Jon Pitton had a falling out with her after Season 6, so her other nephew Danny Pitton became her new nominator.
• Pyrrhic Victory: In as much as not being named as Canada's Worst Driver Ever counts as a 'victory,' she managed to avoid last place.. at the cost of badly injuring her hand, and the looming possibility of a driving license review and the permanent loss of her license.
• Screw This, I'm Out of Here!: She left rehab after the slalom challenge and went home briefly, only to return to rehab after cutting her hand due to a 'poor personal choice' (she injured her hand trying to get back into her house as she was locked out).

Sly Grosjean

• Aesop Amnesia: In the finale of last season, Sly made a promise to Andrew that he would never drive distracted ever again. Unfortunately, he seems to have relapsed into it.
• Epic Fail:
  • In the Reversing-Forward Challenge in Episode 8, his final attempt ended with him backing into a nearby car with such force that its rear windscreen practically exploded!
  • He did so poorly throughout rehab that despite a perfect final drive, he became the first-ever person to fail to graduate from rehab despite not ending up as either the worst driver or runner-up (not counting the drivers who suffered a Non-Gameplay Elimination).
• Flawless Victory: He didn't make a single mistake during his final drive, which even Andrew was amazed by. It still didn't get him graduated, however.
• Graceful Loser: He was willing to name himself the Worst Driver Ever, even after a perfect final drive.
• History Repeats: Did spectacularly poorly on the challenges, but avoided being named the worst because he did well on the road test. Again.
• Know When To Fold Them: He thought that he'd still be named the Worst Ever despite a great road test due to his poor challenge record. He only got lucky because Kevin's own road test was horrific, and they brought Dale back as a possible Worst Ever.

Michael Telford

• Butt-Monkey: Virtually nothing seemed to go right for him this season. Despite generally respectable performances throughout, Shirley did better than him in the second episode, Cam blocked his graduation in the third episode for failing the swerve-and-avoid, Angelina's enforced departure in the fourth episode stopped him from graduating, his performance in the fifth episode was the best of the group but still not graduation-worthy, Shelby did better in the sixth episode, and then Dale's taking herself out of the process in the seventh episode stopped his graduation again. And that's before you consider the abuse he had to put up from with his initial nominator. Fortunately, it all came together in the end, and he became the final graduate.
  • If you include Season 2, Michael as shortlisted for graduation an astounding seven times before finally graduating rehab.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: On top of being the runner-up last time, he endured a lot of bad luck this season to become the final graduate.
• Gentleman Snarker: The quote above was from his final drive when a pedestrian heckled him.
• Put on a Bus: Michael's original nominator, Eric, had health problems that kept him from going with him again, so Eric's wife Yolanda came with Michael.
  • The Bus Came Back: But when it became clear that Yolanda was being more of a detriment to his progress, they sent her home, and brought back a recovered Eric.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Pointed out that he and his initial nominator, Yolanda were this, despite the barbs she constantly aimed at him. However, it eventually got so bad that Michael and the panel realized she wasn't helping him, and so she was sent home and replaced by Michael's original nominator, Eric.

Shelby D'Souza

• Adorkable: Every bit as much as he was in Season 3.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: Became the third graduate after being the runner-up in his season.
• Epic Fail: He ran over a foam figure in the water tank challenge, causing the tank to break and spill the entire 100 liters on top of him.
• Took a Level in Badass: From the start, it was clear that he was a generally better driver than in his original appearance on the show. His main problem was that he was mediocre at high-speed driving and awful at reversing, meaning that he didn't graduate until quite late in the season.

Angelina Marcantognini

• The Alcoholic: She tried to use alcohol as a substitute for the medication she really needed, to the point where she'd often show up for challenges with a hangover.
• Butt-Monkey: The show had her portrayed in a not-so-positive light with Andrew's declarations that Angelina would be declared the worst, and the other contestants joking around about her presence on the show. This was then averted with her removal due her nervous breakdown.
• Downer Ending: Her leaving rehab to a psychiatric center was really filled with sorrow, and the show graduated no one out of respect for her. Later news reports suggest she hasn't improved, with her pleading guilty to drunk driving in April 2015.
• Medal of Dishonor: Averted. While Andrew predicted at the start of the season that she would take the title, following her departure he retracted his statement about her being the worst, saying that it was impossible to fairly judge how capable a driver she was when she had so many other problems in her life, and that Kevin (and arguably also Sly) was worse because it was clear that he simply had zero talent for driving.
• Nervous Wreck: In her original season she had access to prescription anti-depressants. By this season she no longer had them, and the difference was just brutal to watch, eventually culminating in her suffering a full-on nervous breakdown after the Eye of the Needle challenge, resulting in her having to be removed from the show.
• Non-Gameplay Elimination: When it became clear that being in rehab is only making Angelina worse, the show removed her from the show and sent her to a psychiatric rehab center.

Shirley Sampson

• Earn Your Happy Ending: Became the second graduate and fully redeemed herself from the poor road test in Season 7.
• Hard Work Hardly Works: Fully Averted! In the time between seasons, she took more private driving lessons in Halifax, and studied up on the Nova Scotia Drivers Handbook. And if her appearance on this season says anything, it paid off!
• Insult to Rocks: When Janis slipped back to her worrying tone back from Season 7, Shirley called her as bad as Angelina. Janis did not take that well.
• No-Damage Run: Not only did she pass every challenge in the episode when she graduated, she only narrowly missed out on passing every part of the assessment test.
• Running Gag: Subverted this time around, as she graduated in the second episode. Even Andrew lampshades this by saying that she is going to miss her hugs.
• Took a Level in Badass: During her previous appearance she did well in the challenges, but was unable to apply it on the roads. This time around she had clearly improved massively all-around and graduated in the second episode.

Chris Ferguson

• Bald of Awesome: Played straight this time around. Not only did he have a flawless drive to rehab even with the burden of a severely hung-over Angelina as his passenger, he did flawlessly in the initial test and graduated in the first episode.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: Went from being the very first 'Worst Driver' of the series to the first graduate of this season.
• Flawless Victory: He's the first person ever to pass every aspect of the assessment test with no scrapes or crashes, other than a very low-speed collision during the turnaround section, and even then it wasn't enough to visibly damage the car.
• Took a Level in Badass: Big Time!
• What Happened to the Mouse?: While most of the original nominators were with the nominees (minus Michael and Dale above), Chris's nominator and wife Michelle didn't come with him.

Henrietta Gallant

• Know When to Fold 'Em: After realizing just how bad of a driver she was following her previous appearance on the show (and due to her husband having retired around that time), she largely gave up driving outside of the occasional run to the supermarket once a month or so. When the panel was told about this, she was disqualified and sent home.
• Non-Gameplay Elimination: She was disqualified because the panel felt teaching her would be a waste of time as she wasn't driving that much anymore.

Chanie Richard

• Book-Ends: She came to rehab with two drivers’ licenses (one was an older one she lost and found before the show), and left rehab with one (In a Pet the Dog moment from Andrew as having two drivers’ licenses is illegal).
• Chekhov's Gun: The two licenses.
• The Ditz: It's strongly implied that she suffers from ADHD, hence why she has such poor focus and rarely seems to properly remember the lessons. In the final drive, she admitted that she'd never actually bothered reading any of the driving-related literature that was provided for the candidates.
• Dude, Not Funny! (In-Universe): When she was struggling in the Reverse Slalom Challenge, she jokingly asked if she could get a hug for a pass. Andrew called her out on it.
• One-Hit Wonder (In-Universe): She passed all three challenges in the fifth episode, and might have graduated if not for that being the season's traditional 'no graduation' episode, and Chanie herself admitting that she got lucky passing said challenges. Following that, she never again came close to graduating.
• Running Gag: 'Selfie!'
• Wham Line: Her admission in the final meeting with the experts that she'd showed up to rehab without the medication she needs to focus. She'd likely have been named the worst regardless due to Siham being a generally better driver and Jason improving more, but this all but ensured it.

Siham Martell

• Backseat Driver: Wayne kept trying to help Siham, but was only making things worse. Siham did try to tell him to shut up, but the fact she had to do so repeatedly meant he wasn't getting the hint.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Throughout her time on the show she generally seemed quite meek and nervous. The day after the finale aired she went completely ballistic on social media, complaining that the show had made her look too nice, aiming lengthy expletive-laden tirades at Andrew and the show's producers, and even telling former contestants and nominators (including Jodi from Season 2, and Kevin's nominator Lenny) to go fuck themselves when they tried to calm her down.
• Crack Defeat: Jason getting the final graduation over her was a pretty contentious decision, as he made more errors on his final drive and generally did worse than her throughout rehab. However, Jason did improve more than Siham, and Siham's own errors were more serious than Jason's (and arguably even Chanie's) despite her committing fewer of them, so there were valid reasons to graduate them both.
• Distaff Counterpart: She at least seemed to be this for Season 7's Aaron for much of the season, as they had similarly lost confidence after being involved in a major accident. Unfortunately, her reaction after the season ended quickly wrecked that impression.
• Failed a Spot Check: If Andrew hadn't warned Siham in time, she would have gotten into a serious accident during her final drive.
• Nervous Wreck: She was a confident driver long ago, but after getting into an accident, her confidence dropped and must take anti-anxiety medication.
• You Talk Too Much: As previously mentioned, her husband is very bad when it comes to backseat driving. Finally, in episode 7 she tells him point-blank 'You talk too much. Instructions or nothing.' In this case, though, her husband can't really be blamed because she had specifically been asking him to guide her instead of doing the course herself like the should have.

Jason Marcoux

• Blind Without 'Em: He was an early favorite to be named the season's worst, due to his spectacularly terrible early performances. After he got glasses a few episodes in, however, he started doing far better.
• Expy: At first he seemed to be this for Sly, due to his similar level of incompetence in the challenges. However, it eventually turned out that his problem was his bad eyesight more than a lack of ability, meaning that he eventually became the season's final graduate.
• Potty Emergency: He had one during the Road Test, so he had to go outside on a tree. After parking in two stalls designated for nurses.
• Running Gag: His Happy and Sad dances.
• Truth in Television: There is a reason why Jason didn't wear glasses before rehab. He didn't need them back then, and Canadian laws state that all licensed drivers must be retested at age 80.
  • Reality Ensues: That being said, the show sent him to an optometrist office for an eye exam, and the optometrist said he would have to contact the Ministry of Transportation about it which might put Jason's license up for review (albeit likely not with any consequences worse than simply being barred from driving without glasses).

Tyler Fitzsimmons

• Closest Thing We Got: Everybody did poorly in the season's penultimate episode, with the only outright challenge pass belonging to Jason. Tyler ended up graduating because even though he didn't do too well, he still did the best in the two challenges most applicable to real-life (reversing and the icy corner).
• Graceful in Their Element: When it comes to piloting light aircraft, he's very capable. When it comes to cars, however, he has a lot more trouble.

Mariah Carriere

• Dark and Troubled Past: Her father abandoned her family when she was very young, and she subsequently didn't have the best relationship with her mother, which was a major contributor to the reckless attitude she had at the start of the season.
• Drunk Driver: She was at the beginning, with Andrew lambasting her passive attitude over the course of the show.
• Hard-Drinking Party Girl: Her initial personality when she came on the show. Thankfully, Character Development would kick in.
• Mirthless Laughter: She did this a lot during the show, likely due to her Dark and Troubled Past.
• No-Damage Run: Passed all the challenges in her graduation episode, but barely edged over Siham as Tim described Mariah having more confidence.
• Older and Wiser: In a scene cut from the Season 12 finale (though posted online), she came back to the show to share her own story with Krystal, to get through to her. Sadly, it failed, though at least confirmed that Mariah had learned from the experience, even if Krystal didn't.
• Stepford Smiler: Her constant laughing and smiling was to cover her own Dark and Troubled Past.
• Tattoo as Character Type: When she graduated, the show brought her tattoo artist to give her a tattoo that signifies her promise to never drink and drive ever again (something she promised to do if she graduated).

George Firth

• The Bully: Not so much to people's faces, but he did often try to intimidate other drivers while at the wheel.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Despite his occasionally jerkish behavior, he genuinely wanted to reform for the sake of ensuring that his son didn't inherit any of his bad driving habits.
• Manchild: If anything, a lot of the time he seemed less mature than his 17-year-old son was.
• Running Gag: Patrik would punch George every time he would fail a challenge, something even Andrew got into. This is ultimately subverted as George would graduate in the fourth episode.

Santana Pike

• Author Appeal: As a fellow Newfoundlander, Andrew was naturally quite fond of her, especially since she proved one of the better drivers right from the start, helping her uphold (what Andrew claimed to be, at least) the province's reputation for producing good drivers.
• Deadpan Snarker: Jim-Bob.
• No-Damage Run: Had the best challenge run of the nominees in her graduation episode.

Ian Brannan

• The Cobbler's Children Have No Shoes: He's a taxi driver, and is pretty much a bad driver.
• Hidden Depths: He isn't a taxi driver by choice. He's only doing it to pay for journalism school.
• No-Damage Run: An unusual inversion; he never actually passed a single challenge on the show — although a couple in his graduation episode were near-misses — but was graduated because the experts refused to graduate George under any circumstances until they could be sure he wouldn't turn his son into a bad driver, and Ian was considered the safest of the remaining drivers (Santana was probably the most skilled driver aside from George, but wrecked her chances with a terrible Eye of the Needle run).
• Running Gag: Subverted. Andrew had intended to have Ian drive the Cadillac challenges with a Taxi sign on top. Unfortunately, he graduated in the second episode.
• Shocking Elimination (In-Universe): He and his nominator were surprised that he was even on the short list.

Jillian Matthews

• Crippling Overspecialization: She's the best technical driver this season as her multiple challenge wins show, but her nerves and fear of driving really hindered her on public roads.
• Downer Ending: Everything seemed to be setting up for her to finally shake off her demons in her final drive. Sadly, it wasn't to be, and her inability to even attempt the drive caused her to be named the worst.
• Expy: Kind of one to Season 4's Ashley. Both were the best technical drivers of their season, but both had emotional problems that hindered their performance (Ashley had road rage issues while Jillian had severe anxiety issues).
• Hair-Trigger Temper: When she gets stressed, she yells at the first person next to her, mainly her fiancé.
• Henpecked Fiance: Mitchell got yelled a lot by Jillian due to her stress level, though the show made sure she stops doing it. It did get better, and while she was named Canada's Worst Driver, she did leave with a newly strengthened relationship with Mitchell.
• Nervous Wreck: This is a bit of an interesting case. Unlike a lot of drivers in this show that have fears of driving with barely any skills, Jillian does have the skills to drive, but her fear of driving is so bad, she can breakdown in the driver seat and be an emotional wreck.
• Screw This, I'm Out of Here!: She angrily left the 'Reverse Figure Eight' challenge during Sholom's run when he was doing poorly. Though Andrew said that her yelling at him when he is trying was uncalled for.
• Sore Loser: Reacted very angrily when she was named the worst.. at least initially. In an interview the day after the season finale aired, she revealed that she didn't see Polly's or Sholom's final drives until the episode aired, and that having seen their drives convinced her it was the right decision in retrospect.

Polly Sergeant

• Epic Fail: Just when one might have thought that Shmuel's train wreck of a run would be the worst on the Swerve and Avoid, Polly came along and floored the gas after swerving away from the obstacle, causing her to travel at least a couple of hundred yards off the track before getting stuck in the mud.
• History Repeats: Much like Dale from Season 6, she did badly throughout the season and had a poor final drive, but avoided being named the worst because one of the other contestants couldn't even finish (or, in this case, attempt) their own final drive.
• Insistent Terminology: In her own words, she isn't a 'bad' driver or even the 'worst'. Calling herself a 'terrible' driver, on the other hand, is something she agrees with.

Sholom Hoffman

• Butt-Monkey: He was immediately deemed by everyone on the show to be Canada's Worst Driver by the second half of the season. A prominent example is during the finale when even though Polly's run on the 'Forward and Reverse Slalom' was worse than his, everyone still pointed to him as the worst of them all. It was also clear that the experts were expecting it to be a Foregone Conclusion that he would be the worst, and were thrown for a loop when he actually had the best road test of the final three and did better than Polly in the slalom and Mega-Challenge, meaning he couldn't feasibly be named the worst.
• Ditzy Genius: An honours graduate from Mc Gill University, and yet he cannot grasp any aspect of driving whatsoever
• Epic Fail:
  • He shares Angelina's terrible challenge record with only one challenge win out of twenty-three.
  • He also failed to graduate like Sly did in Season 9.
• Hidden Depths: Graduated with honours from Mc Gill University
• Insane Troll Logic: Thought that using a toy car to map out his plan for the challenges would help. While a toy car is a useful way of demonstrating how front-end swing works, it's not as useful for other challenges.
• Ironic Name: Sholom is a Hebrew name that roughly translates to 'peaceful.' Between the damage he did to the cars, his usually demolishing most of the test courses, and how much yelling and screaming he got out of the other drivers (Jillian in particular), his time on the show was anything but peaceful.
• Self-Deprecation:
  • Despite his awful track record in the season, his being the only one of the final three who was willing to admit being potentially the worst played a big part in ensuring that he wasn't even considered for (much less awarded) the title.
  • Throughout the season, he fully admitted he should never have had a license and believes the testing system is flawed.
• Sibling Rivalry: He nominated his brother Shmuel as Canada's Worst Driver (who in turn nominated him) out of spite, though it became painfully clear by Episode 4 that Sholom was the worse of the two.

Renee Boily

• Closest Thing We Got: Her run on the 180-degree spinout was the cleanest out of the final four, but she wasn't at 180 degrees (closest would have been 175 degrees). However, Renee and Jacque believe that she deserved the pass.
• Nervous Wreck: Initially she was just as bad as Jillian in this regard, easily breaking down in tears at the thought of doing the high-speed challenges, to say nothing of driving in public. She was able to shake it off better than Jillian, however, and graduated in the penultimate episode.
• Wham Line (In-Universe): She could have graduated in Episode 6, but when she admitted that she wouldn't drive with her son on the highway just yet, the show graduated Jordan instead. Renee lampshades this in the next episode, though admits the panel made the right decision.

Jordan Paddon

• Blind Without Them: He had bad eyesight, but got glasses early in the show. What's interesting is that he stated he did wear glasses as a kid, but stopped wearing them out fear they weren't cool.
• Camp Gay: Probably the most visible example of this on the show so far, which Jordan himself lampshaded on a few occasions.
• The Dandy: He primps himself (while driving of course) that normally would have been done by the female drivers.
• It's All About Me: At least initially.
• Took a Level in Kindness: In the beginning of the season, he was one of the most selfish drivers out there who looked like he wouldn't change no matter the situation. But by the end of his run, he became nicer and less selfish while driving. In addition, he started taking the challenges more seriously. Cam even lampshades this in his graduation episode.

Shmuel Hoffman

• Big Brother Instinct: Despite the Sibling Rivalry between him and Sholom, he did demonstrate this on occasion, most notably after the Swerve and Avoid fiasco, where the first thing he did after coming to his senses was to check that Sholom was okay (which, fortunately, he was).
• Demoted to Extra: Once he graduated, he fully became Sholom's nominator and didn't appear much afterwards aside from challenges.
• Epic Fail: You expect people to hit things in the Driving Distracted Challenge, but Shmuel ends up destroying half the course in his run. Though the good thing about that was that he promised to quit texting and driving forever.
• No-Damage Run: He passed all the challenges in his graduation episode.
• Only Sane Man: He is this when you compare him to his younger brother.
• Sibling Rivalry: He nominated his brother Sholom as Canada's Worst Driver (who in turn nominated him) out of spite. Though by Episode 4, Shmuel was clearly the better of the two.
• What Were You Thinking?: Got this reaction from Andrew after his calamitous Swerve and Avoid run, where he ended up completely obliterating the course's central wall as a result of speeding and pumping the brakes. Had he passed the challenge; he'd have seriously challenged Cameron for that episode's graduation.

Cameron Donavin

• Big 'YES!': Did a whole bunch of these after passing the Swerve and Avoid, which would prove to be the final challenge he passed before graduating.
• Insane Troll Logic: Cameron thought he could go around the Reverse Figure Eight without stopping, which resulted in him hitting three objects (though it was considered the best of the seven next to Shmuel's perfect run).
• Mandatory Unretirement: He quit driving before rehab because his multiple accidents were racking up the bills. He's forced to come back to driving because his place of work is moving locations.
• No-Damage Run: Passed all the challenges in his graduation episode.

Tina Cook

• Badass Biker: Revealed to be one in her graduation episode, and it was stated that she drove carefully next to bikers out of respect.
• Drunk Driver: In the middle of her audition ride, she took in shots of alcohol with friends, and continued to drive. Andrew was not happy when he found out.
• Never My Fault: Under most circumstances, she'd likely have talked herself out of graduating in the second episode, as she reacted quite angrily to the suggestion that she had an attitude problem (Alex, by comparison, more readily admitted his faults in that regard). However, having an extra contestant this season and her doing the best in that episode's challenges saw her earn a double graduation with Alex.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Tina had another one of her daughters accompany her on the audition ride, but her oldest daughter Ashley was the one to come with her to rehab.

Alex Morrison

• Drives Like Crazy: He's lucky to be alive if you see his audition run.
• Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: Or grandmamas, in his case. It was revealed that he did drive considerately when his grandmother was in the car, and after promising to always drive like she was in the car (and getting a cardboard cut-out of her to make sure he did just that), he became the joint-first graduate.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: While arrogant, he is willing to admit his mistakes. And plus, he does drive more safely when his Grandma is in the car with him, so he isn't a total Jerkass.

Krystal McCann

• Band Wagon Technique: She refuses to stop Texting and Driving because in her mind, 'Everybody Texts and Drives'.
• Berserk Button: Andrew's presence is a big one for her. This is based on the fact Andrew called her a 'Selfish idiot' after hearing about her Nightmare Fuel of a drive up to rehab (which had a total of 107 moving violations). Though Andrew had every right to call her that because of her attitude.
• Butch Lesbian: She was nominated originally by her former girlfriend, as seen in her first nomination video. They'd split up by the time the season began filming, however, leaving her brother to act as her nominator.
• Defiant to the End: No matter what the experts tried to teach her, or any failures she had on the courses, Krystal simply refused to change her ways.
• Drives Like Crazy: Up to Eleven. It's so bad the camera crew refused to go with her in the car for the drive to rehab after her audition drive.
• Dude, Not Funny! (In-Universe): A lot of Krystal's behavior is this, but the one that takes the cake is her laughing at Daniella when she's struggling in the Reverse Slalom. It was so offensive that Tyler forced Krystal to switch seats with him, and Jana and Chantal angrily told off Krystal.
• Epic Fail:
  • Daniella's final drive was bad enough that in most seasons she'd at least have been given serious consideration as the worst, if not awarded the title. Krystal was so bad in her own final drive, especially with her attitude toward Andrew, that the panel agreed that they didn't even need to discuss whether she was the worst or not.
  • On top of that, she's so far the only 'winner' to not receive the trophy. As Andrew stated, they give the trophies to the Worst Drivers since they are the people that have learned the most out of rehab (for better or for worse). But since Krystal refused to learn how to be a safer driver, they instead turned the trophy into a 'Final Graduate Trophy' and gave it to Tyler.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: She very quickly turned into this thanks to her attitude. Everyone on the show tried their hardest to be nice to her, but by the latter stages of the competition everyone's patience had clearly run out, eventually resulting in several people calling her out on her behavior towards Daniella in the final episode.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: Would repeatedly drop Cluster F-Bombs at everyone and anyone at the slightest provocation, and she wasn't afraid to do so to Andrew and the experts as well.
• Hidden Depths: For all her problematic attitude could be a half-decent driver if she could focus or is feeling competitive. Unfortunately, getting her to do so is the problem.
• Hoist by Their Own Petard: Most of her challenge failures can be attributed to her overconfidence. A few examples include:
  • Driving a 100km/h in the 'Swerve and Avoid Challenge' that resulted in her crashing into the front barrier, and almost killing the Mustang Car halfway into the season.
  • Deciding to go off-road in the 'Trailer Challenge', resulting in her getting stuck in a mud pit.
  • Asking to shorten the gap in the 'Know Your Limit Slalom' challenge to 25 meters (or 82 ft) on a course that has them driving at 80km/h, resulting in her spinning out of control.
• Jerkass: Possibly the biggest one of the series, probably even more than Colin or Scott. Colin and Scott were arrogant, but they were expelled for various reasons (Colin because he wasn't taking rehab seriously, and Scott because his nominator pulled his insurance from him). Krystal, however, was on the show for the full episodes, so viewers had to watch nasty attitude towards Andrew and the Judges every episode.
• Jerkass Realization: A day after the season ended, Krystal stated in a interviewed Calgary AM radio show that after leaving rehab, she realized she was a danger on the road. She stated that she hasn't touched her phone while driving since October, and even went to see medical help on her behavior (it turns out she is diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder).
• Medal of Dishonor: Andrew said that she might seriously challenge Kevin for the title of the show's worst-ever driver, albeit she has a completely different set of issues to him, with her problem being more her attitude than any outright lack of driving ability.
• Never My Fault: By far and away the show's worst-ever contestant in this regard, as she repeatedly claimed that as a millennial she has to be treated with kid gloves at all times, and that anytime someone upsets her it's always their own fault. Note that Cody, Daniella, and Diana are also in roughly the same age range (and Amrinder, though he grew up in India), yet never displayed anything remotely like this attitude.
• Only Sane Man: Steven.
• Screw This, I'm Out of Here!:
  • She does this whenever she's pissed off. But two infamous moments on the show include; angrily leaving the panel (and cursing and flipping off them) when they try to tell her that driving while texting on her cell phone is dangerous in Episode 4, and leaving pissed off when Andrew and Steven confront her about her behavior in Episode 6.
  • Steven ended up doing this in the finale after reaching his limit with Krystal's behavior after the 'Reverse Slalom Challenge' in the finale. He wasn't even there during the trophy ceremony, although he did film a final interview expressing his concern for his sister’s wellbeing.
• Sore Loser: Surprisingly enough, downplayed. She didn't get as angry as several past candidates have on being told they're the worst, but also clearly didn't give a crap about getting the title.
• Watch the Paint Job: Par for the course she badly mangled a bunch of vehicles in the season, but she went a step further by managing to damage the car hired out for the final drive, even if it was only the tires and hubcaps.

Daniella Florica

• Bittersweet Ending: She wasn't named the worst driver this season, but she never fully learned how to drive on the highway without being stressed out. Becomes inverted soon afterwards when Daniella posted on social media after the finale that she got her full G license months after filmed, meaning her fear on highway driving is all but gone.
• Fatal Flaw: Her complete inability to drive on the highway, which eventually culminated in her suffering a Heroic BSoD on her final drive and having to have Andrew make every single decision for her. If not for that, she would likely have gotten the final graduation over Tyler, as her final drive until that point had been better. As it was, it was probably only Krystal's terrible final drive and even worse attitude that kept Daniella from being named the worst.
• Hard Work Hardly Works: Averted; While she did struggle in the training for the trailer challenge, she took to Google and found tutorial videos to help her. It worked, and Tim praised her for taking the extra step.
• Nervous Wreck: Got very easily stressed out. She was able to reduce it somewhat throughout the season, but was never able to deal with it while on the highway.
• Spoiled Sweet: She had a lot of people do the driving for her (family members and husband), but she was very pleasant around other nominees and didn't have a mean streak.

Tyler Dupont

• Captain Oblivious: To painful levels when being prompted to speak about his drunk driving habits. Most of the time he thinks it's about something else driving related.
• Character Development: The show did this for him during his stay at rehab. When the season first started, he was shown to be an unrepentant drunk driver who could have easily been awarded Canada's Worst Driver if it wasn't for Krystal. But by the second half of the season, he did try to take the challenges more seriously. And by episode six, he was seen in a more sympathetic light when it was revealed that a brain injury that happened during a car accident lead him to drink in order to calm himself down. Toss in a decent performance during the Mega Challenge and an adequate road test and Tyler became a deserving graduate of the show to the point that not only Steven was impressed with his development, but the show repurposed the Worst Driver trophy as a Final Graduate Trophy instead.
• Drowning My Sorrows: Before leaving for rehab, Tyler mentions that he drinks in order to calm himself down. It wasn't until Episode 6 when Jana revealed to Andrew that a brain injury from an accident caused his anxiety to spike up, so he drinks to slow his brain down.
• Drunk Driver: He admits to being one early on, causing everyone around him to chew him out for his total (apparent) obliviousness to this problem. Fortunately, he manages to promise to stop drinking and driving by the second half of the season. Not only that, we find out the true reason why he chose to drive impaired.
• Epic Fail: His Eye Of The Needle run is considered as bad as Flora's. Ironically, he admitted he laughed at Flora's performance when he watched the incident years ago.
• Foreshadowing: Before leaving on his drive to rehab, he mentions he drinks and drives to calm himself down, something Andrew states he never heard of in his run on the show. In Episode 6, we see the reason why.
• Medal of Dishonor: Subverted. He got the trophy (repurposed into the 'Final Graduate Trophy') because he learned the most out of the final three (that, and the show didn't think Krystal deserved it).
• Nice Hat: Is rarely seen without his baseball cap.
• No-Damage Run: Well he made one hit on a rim, but he posted what the show declared the best Mega Challenge run ever.
• Not So Different: Despite getting an earful from Mike over his drink-driving, it turned out that Tyler himself had received a brain injury in a traffic accident, which was the cause of the anxiety that caused him to drink and drive in the first place.
• Throw It In! (In-Universe): The show wasn't going to do a 'Trailer Challenge', or even a lesson, as Tim believed anyone can do it with simple steps. But Tyler asked for one, and they did it with everyone. Tyler managed to pass the challenge flawlessly.
• Took a Level in Badass: Did horribly throughout much of the season, and would have been the clear favorite to be named the worst had Krystal not also been there. He improved massively in the last three episodes, however, and ended up becoming the final graduate.

Lou Valcourt

• Dark and Troubled Past: She lost her friend to a drunk driver, which could explain why it took her till her 40's to get her full license.
• Happily Married: To her husband Derek.
• Multicolored Hair: Her hair is colorful.
• Nervous Wreck: She only got her full license just last year, but her biggest fear is highway driving.
• No-Damage Run: The only person to pass all the challenges in her graduation episode.
• Perky Goth: Most of the time she fell into this category; driving was the one situation where she turned into more of a nervous Goth.
• The Quiet One: Derek rarely talks, and the show's editors decided to poke fun in one episode by adding cricket sounds for him.

Mike Adrain

• Captain Crash: He tends to hit things back at home. Part of the problem is that he drives a big truck at home, and even agrees with Andrew in Episode 5 that it's probably better to trade it in for a smaller car.
• Expy: To Aaron, but Up to Eleven. While Aaron's accident led to obvious physical disabilities, Mike's accident made him forget everything. He had to relearn everything from walking to driving.
• Happily Married: To his wife (and nominator) Christian. She was also in the same vehicle when Mike had his accident, and she had injuries from it as well.
• Hidden Depths: For someone with a brain injury, he managed to pass more high-speed challenges than Andrew thought he would.
• I Choose to Stay: He constantly asked to stay in rehab in the hopes he could improve more. It gets subverted in Episode 6 however, when the panel decided to graduate him despite his request to stay since he was easily the best out of the nominees so far, and the only other realistic nominee, Daniella, still had severe issues with nervousness.

Diana Hutchings

• Belief Makes You Stupid: Up to Eleven. Her constant use of spiritual items while driving is hazardous. Andrew did emphasize that there was nothing wrong with her beliefs in themselves, but doing them while at the wheel was very foolish.
• Break the Haughty: She was initially dismissive about the 'Distracted Driving Challenge', but soon realized what her distractions could cause in the worst-case scenario.
• Hidden Depths: After the 'Distracted Driving Challenge', she admits to Andrew that her need for the spiritual items is to help with her confidence.
• Innocently Insensitive: Lit an incense stick for her figure-eight reversing run without bothering to ask any of the other drivers if it was okay. Most of them were clearly bothered by the smoke and smell but were polite enough not to say anything. Krystal, on the other hand..
• No-Damage Run: Was the only person to pass all three challenges in her graduation episode.

Amrinder Dua

• Asian Driver: Again, like Arun, he's from India but it still counts.
• Captain Crash: Totaling his friend's (and nominator's) car resulted in him being nominated.
• Dope Slap: On the receiving end from Andrew after failing the 'Eye Of The Needle Challenge' due to speeding.
• Drives Like Crazy: Mostly due to being unfamiliar with Canadian Road Rules.
• Spear Counterpart: Subverted. He initially looked to be this with Krystal as they're both the youngest this season, both drive like crazy, and both are addicted to their cell phones. Amrinder, however, took the lessons more seriously than her and graduated second.

Cody Jensen

• All or Nothing: The stakes for Cody are high. He's one demerit point away from losing his license again (possibly permanently). and his girlfriend has threatened to leave him if it happens.
• Consolation Prize: Got a Mike car freshener just as a reminder after he graduated.
• Drives Like Crazy: He likes to drift around while turning corners.
• Expy: Of Season 7's John. Down to the point that both were convinced to change their ways after talking to someone who was in a serious car accident.
• Jerkass Realization: He promised to stop driving recklessly after talking with Mike.
• No-Damage Run: One of the few people (next to Chris from Ever) to do the assessment challenge flawlessly. This proves to Andrew though that Cody's problems aren't technical, but more on attitude.

Melanie Lautard

• Cluster F-Bomb: She did this during her final drive when Andrew asked her to do the driver's commentary. Andrew lampshades this by trying to get her to do a Cluster Fun Bomb instead.
• Dude, Not Funny! (In-Universe): Sending goofy pics to the contestants while in the hospital after fainting doesn't make the other nominees happy at the very least.
• Foil:
  • To Ashley. While both are nervous drivers that do not have a lot of skills, Ashely was willing to learn more from the experts while Melanie was not.
  • To Shayne. Both had abit of a negative outlook on driving but as with Ashely above, Shayne shook that outlook around the second half while Melanie kept hold of it to the very end.
• Good Parent: Her main reason for coming to rehab is to gain more confidence on the highway as a lot of her kid's doctors’ appointments are in Halifax. Subverted in the end, however, as she never made a serious effort to improve, got named the worst of the season, and then never bothered taking the extra lessons that the show paid for her to have.
• Hard-Drinking Party Girl: Episode 6 reveals that during the evenings, she would party and get drunk. Reality Ensues soon enough as she starts having dizzy spells and had to be sent to a hospital for a few days, missing two challenges along with Travis's graduation as a result.
• Nervous Wreck: Only started driving due to a recent divorce, and she's even afraid of parking in handicap spots.
• Odd Friendship: Not that it was ever shown on-screen, but she apparently struck one of these up with Joe's nominator Tony during or after filming of the season. After the finale aired, Tony claimed on the show's Facebook page that the reason she never took up the driving lessons the show paid for was because he'd helped her improve her driving skills, and that she was now a competent driver.
• Sore Loser: While it's more downplayed than most of the other recipients, she was clearly upset by that decision and swore at Andrew. She even flipped him off when she was leaving.
• Ungrateful Bastard: She showed a bit of it when she was driving on the highway, and even lashed out at Tim a couple of times. Episode 7 revealed that she was getting more public driving lessons that the rest of the nominees, but still refused to follow Tim's suggestion (even the famous 'drivers’ commentary') to help her out, which led Andrew to wonder if their efforts were working. Then in the end of Episode 8, Andrew revealed to her that when she got home they would offer her driving lessons, but she had not taken them at the time the finale aired (which was five months after it was filmed) although there is a good reason as the trope above explained.

Ashley Dunne

• Bittersweet Ending: Ashley clearly had improved a lot during rehab, but it wasn't enough for her to graduate. Still, Andrew was amazed at how far Ashley had progressed when it came time for the final road test.
• The Bus Came Back: Jillian from Season 11 returns as Ashley's nominator, making her the first person in the franchise to be both a nominee and nominator in different seasons (Sholom and Shmuel from the same season were the first pairs of nominees and nominators overall).
• Distaff Counterpart: Oddly, she ended up being this for Sly from Season 7 and Ever, in that she did poorly throughout the challenges, but avoided being named the worst thanks to a near-perfect road test. Averted in one sense however, in that the experts did believe she could become a competent driver if she shakes off her nerves, as opposed to Sly, who they very firmly believed shouldn't be driving.
• Epic Fail: Presented what Andrew calls the 'Worst Slalom Run' in the show's history as she ran through all five of the foam figures in the assessment challenge. Her overall performance on that challenge is also deemed by Andrew as the 'Worst Assessment Challenge' performance ever.
• Expy: She shares a lot of Jillian's traits from Season 11; bad anxiety, doesn't drive unless it's work-related, and cries under pressure.
• Failed a Spot Check: The pedestrian on her final drive. To be fair, it also appeared that the pedestrian wasn't paying attention to his surroundings while crossing the street as well.
• Foil:
  • Between her and Jillian, both exhibit bad anxiety problems in rehab and on the road. It's just the difference is that Jillian showed in her season the basic skills of a good driver, while Ashley has yet to show it. In the end, she ended up being somewhat the opposite of Jillian; she stayed nervous throughout the season in challenges, but unlike Jillian, not only felt confident enough to attempt the road test, but even turned in the best test of the final three (well, aside from the slight matter of nearly running someone over).
  • She is also one to Melanie as they are both drivers with problems on the highway, but Ashley is willing to learn more than Melanie.
• For Want of a Nail: Admittedly, it was a pretty big nail; her final drive was completely flawless, apart from an incident where she nearly ran over a pedestrian and had to be stopped by Andrew. If not for that, it would have been a complete no-brainer to name Melanie the worst, and Ashley might even have challenged Adam for the final graduation (though it would have been a long shot, considering Adam's own final drive was quite good, and he had a much better track record in the challenges). Instead, it nearly got her named the worst.
• Hard Work Hardly Works: Averted. While she was not the best in the challenges and ended up failing to graduate, she was a better student than Melanie in rehab, which probably helped the expert's decision in deciding who was the worst.
• History Repeats:
  • Played with. Like Jillian, she failed to graduate, but she wasn't named Canada's Worst Driver either.
  • In a more straightforward example, she ended up following a similar path to Emily from Season 4, in that she was consistently at the bottom of the pile when it came to the challenges, but ended up avoiding being the worst simply because she put in an effort to improve, unlike the one who ended up being named the worst (Ashley in Season 4, Melanie this season).
• Nervous Wreck: She's possibly as bad in this regard as Jillian was in Season 11. Andrew mentions that she cried 14 times during the drive to rehab, and during the audition tape she repeatedly takes her hands off the wheel while panicking and attempts to make a U-turn in a roundabout, driving against traffic.
• Older and Wiser: Jillian. She's more patient, less likely to lash out at anyone, and she even revealed in the season premiere that her driving has been a lot better since leaving rehab.
• Pink Is Feminine: She got a pink Cadillac for the parking lot challenge, much to her excitement.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Played with regarding Jillian. Although Andrew and Jillian had a brief discussion on the latter's driving during the beginning of the season, not much more about Jillian's improvement was shown on screen.

Adam Bourre

• Adorkable: He is this in spades.
• Always Someone Better: He always did well throughout rehab, but ended up in the final episode purely because someone else did just that little bit better — Julie in the third week, Breanna in the fourth, Travis in the sixth, and Shayne in the seventh — and the one week that he was inarguably the best driver was the week where no-one is ever allowed to graduate. Fortunately, all his hard work paid off and he became the final graduate.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: He learned a lot in rehab in terms of driving and confidence and became the final graduate after a near-perfect road test.
• Heroic BSoD: Suffered one during the Icy Corner Challenge when he constantly hit the wall, but he did manage to pull himself together and pass.
• Hidden Depths: His confidence can be sparked up when given motivation, as Andrew did in the assessment challenge for the slalom portion.
• Manchild: Labelled as one by the show (although mostly for humor), and part of his goal is to gain more confidence and be a man.
• Nervous Wreck: He had a 'big' accident (which was driving into a ditch slowly) that crushed his confidence. He often needs to pull over to calm down while driving.
• No-Damage Run: His performance on the public road test was easily the best of the final three, and if it were not for running a red light, he would have been the fourth person in the show's history to perform a perfect drive.
• Spear Counterpart: To Billie-Jean from Season 3, in that he always did well, but kept missing out on graduation due to someone else having a breakthrough performance.
• Took a Level in Badass: In terms of confidence, he got better in every episode and the final road test showed how much more comfortable he was with driving.

Shayne Greer

Canada's Worst Driver Ever

• Character Development: He started this season as a cynic that only looked at the dark side of the world (mostly because of his accident), but starting in Episode 4 he is starting to smile and laugh which the experts have noticed. He even mentions that being in rehab has better him a lot.
• Chekhov's Skill: Being a gravel worker, Shayne was able to complete the trailer challenge with ease in almost 4 minutes.
• The Cynic: His accident caused him to have a bit more of a darker view of the world and only see the negative outcomes. Fortunately, it was starting to go away by the second half.
• Dark and Troubled Past: When Shayne was 13, he was hit by a speeding car and almost lost his legs. The effect on him caused him to be reluctant to drive.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: Not only did he become a better driver, but his outlook on life was changed very positively and he learned that he was not brain damaged as he thought before.
• Flawless Victory: Performed what Philippe called the best run on the Icy Corner Challenge in the 11 years he has been an expert.
• I Choose to Stay: Despite passing all the challenges in Episode 4, he decided to stay in rehab to better himself more.
• No-Damage Run: Passed all three of the challenges in his graduation episode.
• Reality Ensues: Subverted. The accident as stated above was thought to have caused brain damage to Shayne, and he was unable to remember some of the lessons. Andrew even told him that the show might give him medical treatment for it. In episode 7, it's revealed that he did take a MRI scan during his time in rehab, but fortunately, there was no brain damage found.
• Painfully Slow Projectile: He tends to drive slowly, and even stated that he got t-boned by a car doing 60 km/h while he did around 30 km/h in an intersection.
• When He Smiles: He had a bit of a grouch look in the first three episode, but the challenges he has been passing gave him a big smile much to the praise of the experts.

Travis Murray

• Blind Without Them: Played With. While he does wear glasses, he had to get a stronger prescription by Episode 6 to fix his sight.
• Epic Fail: His run on the 'Eye Of The Needle Challenge' is stated by Andrew to be the worse in CWD's history as he ran through 4 of the arches and deliberately missed the fifth one while speeding at 90km/h.
• Expy: To Chris from Season 1. Both had little to no skills coming into rehab, and both were nominated by their wives. The only difference between the two is that Travis graduated (Chris did eventually graduate in Ever but he was named Canada's Worst Driver in Season 1).
• Happily Married: To his wife and nominator April.
• Naïve Newcomer: He only had his driver’s license for 2 weeks before coming on the show since he wouldn't be admitted without a valid one (learners permits (G1) would not count). Because of this, he came into this with little to no skills.
• Never My Fault: In the beginning at least. Travis blamed a lot of his shortcomings from his bad eye to the car itself instead of his own limitations as a driver. He stopped by the second half of his run, however.
• Nervous Wreck: He doesn't have a lot of experience behind the wheel, making him anxious and overwhelmed when driving.
• Took a Level in Badass: When he started, it looked like he would be named Canada's Worst Driver this year for his inexperience. But by the second half, he started to improve both as a driver and in his confidence. While he wasn't doing highway drives like the rest of the nominees, his improvements were enough to warrant a graduation.
• What Happened to the Mouse? (In-Universe): He did not appear with the other nominees for the drive to rehab because he was at a wedding on the same day. Humorously the show made a life-size cardboard in his place until he finally arrived for his assessment challenge.

Breanna Pratley

• Ascended Fangirl: Ironically, she's a fan of the show, but has learned some tips from previous seasons to help her out.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Part of the reason for her fear of driving and the highway is because she got t-boned three years ago. It took Tim getting her do a highway drive that rids her of those fears.
• Distaff Counterpart: To Season 2/9's Michael as she's a knowledgeable person, but has difficulty applying the lessons to real life.
• Genius Ditz: As Cam himself said, 'Book smart, car dumb'.
• Nervous Wreck: Her fear of driving on the highway got so bad, the cameraman had to complete the drive up to rehab for her.
• The Perfectionist: She's an A-Class type. Unfortunately for her, the only thing she doesn't have control of is the other drivers. She also hates to fail at the challenges but eventually, she decides to focus on being a good driver, and not a perfect driver.

Julie Wrzesien

• Captain Crash: She literally has the nickname 'Crash' as she's been in 16 accidents and written off 3 cars since she was 17.
• Fatal Flaw: Subverted. Impatience was this for her, but she quickly realized that it affected her performances in the challenges. Once she got it managed, she became the second graduate.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: While a little conceited, she proved to be one of the best students of that season, and took the advice from the experts and Andrew with no argument.
• No-Damage Run: Played With. She passed 2 out of 3 challenges (the only failure being the Eye Of The Needle, and even then the only driver who did better than her was Adam), but she was the only one putting herself up for graduation, so the experts agreed to graduate her.
• Spoiled Brat: Her husband has been paying off her damages since the beginning, so she never faced any repercussions for her actions.

Joe Palozzi

Canada's Worst Driver Season 8

• Consolation Prize: He got a rear-view mirror ornament of his daughter with a sign reminding him to never go past 120km/h.
• Drives Like Crazy: Treats the roads as his own universe.
• Even Jerks Have Loved Ones: He cares a lot about his 22-year-old daughter a lot, so the show brought her to rehab so he can honestly promise to the panel and Andrew that he will never speed again. It's the reason why he became the first graduate.
• Expy: He seems to be an older version of both Season 7's John and Season 12's Cody as he has the most skills of the nominees, but his speeding habits are the reason why he's in rehab. He also has some things in common with Season 10's George, in that he's a father who really ought to be a safer driver given his age and skill level, though he was able to graduate a little quicker than George was (George was twice barred from graduating because his teenage son was learning to drive during filming, and the experts didn't want him passing on any bad habits; Joe's daughter, on the other hand, was in her early 20s, and presumably already has a license).
• No-Damage Run: He did pass all the challenges in his graduation episode, but the main concern for Andrew and the experts was him not agreeing right away to slow down. It's only when his daughter shows up that he does promise to slow down, convincing the experts (minus a skeptical Tim) to graduate him.

Brandon Wilkins

• All or Nothing: He's the only driver in his family, so if he loses his license, his father will not make it to his doctor appointments.
• Captain Crash: He has been in 20 accidents and wrote off 5 cars in the 10 months he has had a license.
• Epic Fail: Produced what Andrew and Cam agree to be the worst final drive in the show's history, which totaled up to $2100 of fines, and being oblivious to basic road signs (such as the no U-Turn sign). When you somehow pass even S9 Kevin and S12 Krystal's final drive (both of whom had their tests ended prematurely for various reasons), that's amazing.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: His anxiety for driving builds rapidly in the car, which led Andrew to believe that it might be a form of mental illness.
• Ignored Epiphany: Even after seeing Sarah perform the Distracted Driving Challenge, Brandon refused to stop texting and driving, greatly disappointing Andrew.
• Know When To Fold Them: By Episode 7, Brandon made a promise that should he be named the Worst Driver that year, he would give up driving for good. Indeed, when he was named the Worst, he cut up his licence willingly, and as Andrew stated at the end of the season, Brandon has not driven in the last 5 months after.
• Mood-Swinger: He's prone to wild mood swings, from fury to despair. He was sent to see a doctor while on the show, who suggested he might have bipolar disorder. He even told Shyamala during Episode 6 that when he leaves rehab, he'll seek professional help.
• Rage Breaking Point: Had one after failing the Reverse 180 Challenge, where he had a complete meltdown in the car, and kicked a couple of foam barriers.
• Reality Ensues:
  • He came to rehab with a broken arm from a skateboard accident, and was almost barred from driving as he did not receive a signed form from a doctor clearing him. Brandon had to use a spinner attachment (designed for one-handed drivers) for the first few episodes, though after his cast was trimmed back he could start driving without it.
  • Since driving distracted requires two hands, Sarah had to do the Distracted Driving Challenge in Brandon's place.
• Sore Loser: Zig-zagged; at first he refused to even consider the possibility that he might be the worst, and dropped a Cluster F-Bomb when Andrew announced he was. After it had sunk in, however, he cut up his license with minimal fuss and honored his promise to give up driving.

Alexis Pratola

• Epic Fail: Her Swerve and Avoid Challenge run was honestly the worst of the six as she ran through the middle barrier when the object appeared, and impaled the front of the Mustang with a wooden plank. The scary thing though; she didn't think it was that bad until she saw the carnage she caused!
• Foil: To both Season 2's Shannon and Descyara from the same season. All three of them are young mothers who need to be better for their kids (even though Shannon was pregnant at the time of filming), but at the very least, both Shannon and Descyara made an effort to show some attentiveness and interest in learning to drive safer while Alexis has not.
• History Repeats: Much like Daniella from Season 12, she put in a performance that would have seen her named the worst in a lot of seasons, but avoided the title just because of how catastrophically awful the 'winner' of the season did in their own final drive.
• Insane Troll Logic: When told by Andrew that Brittany was seriously considering quitting driving if named the worst, she called her stupid in response, even arguing that she'll keep driving no matter what.
• Lack of Empathy: This borders on being a Fatal Flaw, but Alexis does not care enough about the lessons, even calling them stupid when she fails them. Later episodes show more of that uncaring attitude with the show starting to comment that despite her saying that she does care, she doesn't show it in her driving, along with not taking the lessons serious enough.
• The Last of These Is Not Like the Others: It's not that often when we have a driving instructor as a nominator. The two keep in contact only because Alexis calls him whenever she gets into trouble.
• Sore Loser: If anything, she reacted worse to being named the runner-up than Brandon did to being named the worst, as she felt she deserved to graduate and was not amused by Andrew cutting up a copy of her license to make a point.
• Stealing the Handicapped Spot: Downplayed. In the parking lot challenge, Alexis was seen parking in a spot designated for pregnant women, and admits that she does it often enough. Andrew does clarify thought that while it's not illegal to do that, it is immoral.

Brittany Dube

• Attention Deficit.. Ooh, Shiny!: Like with Ryan, Brittany drives distracted, which leads to some accidents (although in her case, the amount of distractions is more than Ryan ever used). Overall, her distracted nature was the flaw that the show tried to iron out, and eventually, she became more focused come challenges and the final road test (doing Tim's running commentary also helped in that regard).
• Drives Like Crazy: Holy shit! Between drunk driving, driving distracted, speeding, running red lights, being involved in numerous accidents^note , she has accumulated over $80,000 in both fines and repairs combined! She failed her driving test eleven times before passing.
• Flawless Victory: She is one of the four people now that did a perfect road test (after S5 Arun, S8 Diana, and S9 Sly).
• Hard Work Hardly Works: Averted. in the final road test, Brittany revealed that she had study sessions every night to study road signs, and come the test, she had full knowledge of those road signs (compared to Alexis and Brandon, neither of whom bothered to study before hand).
• Ignored Epiphany: Despite causing multiple crashes in the Distracted Driving Challenge, Brittany could not promise she could drive without her cellphone. Fortunately, she did eventually learn how to focus properly while driving undistracted.
• Insane Troll Logic:
  • Before taking the trough challenge, Brittany had no idea that her wheel placement was awful, as she thought it was something wrong with her car to the point that she took it to her dealership to fix the realignment.
  • Prior to coming onto the show, she believed that it was normal for a person to have had dozens of collisions and accidents while driving, and that most drivers were just too proud to admit it. To demonstrate just how crazy this was, Andrew went around all the panel and crew during Episode 5, and aside from the ones you'd have expected the experts to be involved in during their line of work (i.e. police chases for Cam, races for Philippe, and accompanying accident-prone learners in Tim's case), they hadn't even been involved in a dozen accidents between them.
• No-Damage Run: After spending the first seven episodes inconsistent, Brittany in the final episode had the best performance in the three remaining challenges, earning her spot as the final graduate.
• Stealing the Handicapped Spot: She did try to park in the handicap spot during the parking lot challenge.. while hitting the sign in the process!
• Workaholic: In Episode 5, she revealed she would usually pick up any overtime shifts (three per week) she could grab in order to pay for her damages out of her own pockets instead of just calling insurance for it. This is deconstructed as she works as a care aid towards people that were dealing with psychiatric problems, and she has no healthy outlet to deal with it.

Descyara McMurray

• Break the Haughty: She broke down into tears after the Driving Distracted Challenge, leading her to make an honest promise to give up texting and driving.
• Drives Like Crazy: When you hear about all the accidents she has been in, it's unsurprising that she had a metal rod inside her arm, or scratches from broken glass.
• Expy: To Season 1's Faith-Ann. Both are reckless drivers that have been in accidents that required metal being placed inside them (in Descy's case, a metal rod in her arm), and both still continue to drive recklessly.
• Good Parents: While she does drive recklessly, she does not do so in the presence of her two daughters.
• No-Damage Run: Only person to have passed all the challenges in her graduation episode.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Yes, she's rough around the edges, and swears like a teenager, but Descyara was clearly one of the better students this season, and showed an honest desire to learn from rehab.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Went by Descy as of Episode 3.
• Only Sane Woman: Has quickly taken up this mantle following Ryan's graduation, as the only one of the drivers not to have any major issues with nerves, anger, or apathy.
• Tattoo as Character Type: During her final episode, she went and got herself a tattoo of the word 'Focus' written on as a reminder to keep focusing while driving.
• You Gotta Have Blue Hair: Has dyed pink hair.

Karlene Bowen

• All for Nothing: Despite improving the most out of the five-remaining driver, it's revealed in the ending of her graduation episode that she went back to who she was before rehab.
• Backseat Driver: Subverted. Darrell has respectably let Karlene make her own decisions as she asked him not to give her advice.
• Downer Ending: Despite graduating in Episode 6 and proving that she could drive by herself, Karlene could not do the bonus lesson she requested, and after returning home, she sent a message to rehab saying that she had to go to therapy in what she called the 'worst experience of her life', while also reverting back to her fear of driving outside her own town. Ultimately, this is one graduation that the show did not have a happy ending.
• Nervous Wreck: After an accident 12 years ago where she almost lost her legs, Karlene is too afraid of driving anywhere that's not her hometown.
• Reality Ensues: Because of Karlene's frail state, she could not do the Trough Challenge as it was, and had to take a simpler course to get the full lesson. It was also the same frail state that prohibited her from taking the Teeter-Totter challenge.
• Stealing the Handicapped Spot: Averted — she has a handicapped-parking permit, and could use it for a parking lot challenge.
• Took A Level In Jerk Ass: In the first five episodes, Karlene showed to be a kindhearted women, who had severe anxiety issues, and was willing to learn more to gain more confidence. Then came the Water Tank Challenge, where her attitude took a sharp turn when she yelled profanity at Andrew when he kept telling her to go 60 km/h in the straight away, and kept doing it in the confessional area^note .
• Your Other Left: She accidentally got lost during the drive to rehab, and took the longest to get there. Although to be fair, it was because Darrell accidentally programmed the gps to go to Pearson Airport instead of Dunville.

Darris Wilderman

• Bait-and-Switch: Darris' main reason in agreeing to rehab was because Jen would not pay for his insurance if he did not. However, come the Shoulder Check Challenge, Jen admitted that it was an excuse to get him to rehab, and is no longer going to pay even if he graduates or not.
• Brutal Honesty: Flat-out told Tim during the public practice sessions that he didn't like him and found him annoying, though Darris later apologized for this in his final episode, admitting that he had been out of line.
• Character Development: The show made sure he got a sledgehammer load of this in the first four episodes. Slowly, he began to unravel some dark secrets from his family such as a father who was as angry as he was, an older brother that was in jail for killing somebody with his car, and a cousin that died in a car accident when he was twelve. In addition, his mother Jen refused to pay for his insurance any longer, forcing him to come to terms of becoming financially stable by himself. It took a lot from the experts, but eventually, Darris proved that he could drive without road raging anymore, and effectively became the second graduate.
• Crippling Overspecialization: He is the best driver of the nominees (besides Ryan), but his explosive attitude kept him from graduating in Episodes 2 and 3.
• Dark and Troubled Past: He was involved in an accident in a stolen car, which resulted in his cousin’s death. Although, this has not affected his driving in a positive way. Episode 2 adds more to that as it was his father's poor attitude that gave Darris' aggressive attitude towards driving, and his brother is in prison for vehicular manslaughter.
• Death Seeker: Andrew believes in the premiere episode that Darris' reckless driving is based on guilt that he should have died in the accident that killed his cousin. Darris himself is starting to believe that.
• Foil: Jen (Darris') mother is the complete opposite to Maureen (Season 8's Klyne's mother/nominator). They're both the mothers to reckless sons, but while Maureen acted as an enabler to Klyne's accidents, Jen has reached her limit with Darris', even refusing to pay for his insurance any longer.
  • He's also this to Season 13's Breanna, as both are young drivers who graduated relatively early and survived accidents that changed their driving outlooks, but while Breanna became terrified of dying behind the wheel, Darris became a Death Seeker out of Survivor's Guilt.
• Flawless Victory: Darris passed every challenge he was on (minus the Reversing Challenge as he proved he could reverse during the Assessment Challenge), which has never been done so before in the show's history.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: Might be the worst example the show has ever had in recent years. His road rage and anger issues has caused multiple accidents, and during the filming of the season, he had a pending charge of assault against him!
• Ignored Epiphany: You'd think that being in an accident that killed your cousin would impact you in such a way. Unfortunately, this did not for Darris.
• Survivor's Guilt: As stated above, Darris clearly feels guilty that he survived while his cousin died in the accident, hence why he drives recklessly.

Canada's Worst Driver 14 Wikipedia

Ryan Whitter

Canada's Worst Driver Wiki

• Attention Deficit.. Ooh, Shiny!: Part of the reason why he was nominated was due to using his phone while driving. However, sometime in between his audition tape and his bio tape, he stopped using it.
• Expy: One to both Season 10 George and Season 13 Joe as he's a father that needs to be a better driver for his children. He's also one to Season 2's Matt as they're both good drivers once you take their cell phones away.
• Flawless Victory: He is one of the few people to complete all three parts of the assessment challenge perfectly.
• History Repeats: In a similar vein to Season 9's Chris, Ryan did both the drive to rehab and the assessment challenge perfectly that he could graduate in the premiere episode.
• Only Sane Man: In a season that contains some of the most dysfunctional drivers yet (which includes a person with severe anxiety, a person who does not care about safety, a person who is extremely aggressive on the roads, a person who has terrible anger management issues, and a very clueless person), having just a cellphone addiction while driving is pretty tamed. And plus, Ryan got that managed even before coming to rehab.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: Only appears in the first episode of this season, so we do not get a full understanding of Ryan afterwards.