Playing With / Drives Like Crazy

2 Following

Basic Trope: Someone who is horrible at driving.

• Straight:
  • Bob speeds, smashes into lamp-posts, and other cars.
  • Alice will fail to read signs, and doesn't signal.
• Exaggerated:
  • Bob drives off a cliff into a town, destroying everything in the process.
  • Alice smashes through several buildings and even blows up a gas station when she drives.
  • For Alice, "stopping a car" and "crashing without dying" may as well be the same thing — especially with all the Ramp Jumps she takes. People who behold her driving — let alone survive it — tend to develop a Trauma Button of cars, Alice, and Alice driving cars right up there with a close encounter with Great Cthulhu in terms of sanity-shattering fear.
  • It takes Alice thirty miles to figure out she kept the stupid car in reverse.
  • Bob somehow manages to crash his car on a satellite in outer space.
  • Absolutely nobody knows how to operate a car, and "roads" consist of 50 car pileups. Space debris also includes millions of cars that somehow managed to end up in outer space.
  • Bob is a pilot of a Humongous Mecha in the middle of a war, a situation in which driving like a maniac would not be frowned on, at least when it happens in the middle of a battle and has "I was trying not to be killed" as a justification. He still manages to get his piloting license removed after a single battle, because he is just that demented behind the controls and nearly got the entire fleet killed as collateral damage.
• Downplayed:
  • Bob often fails to use signaling.
  • Alice is a good driver, but has troubles with Parallel Parking.
  • Bob is a genuinely skilled driver who forgets his passengers don't have Nerves of Steel and are terrified by the various near misses he gets into.
• Justified:
  • Alice has never driven before, and doesn't have a license.
  • Alice has a Godzilla on their tail.
  • Bob is trying to get away from the police, so abiding the rules is not at the top of the priority list at the moment.
  • Bob is foolish, idiotic, clumsy and/or easily distracted. Maybe on top of being young.
  • Alice is a stereotypical woman/Asian. What would you expect?
  • Sir Bob Wellington Esquire has only recently hopped across the pond, so he still finds right side driving to be a tad tedious.
  • The car Bob took is too overpowered or clunky for his skill set and every attempt to compensate just gets out of his hands.
  • Bob is a suicidal madman with Complete Immortality and he really does not care if driving like this gets him killed.
  • Alice is empowered with an ability that allows her to drive as she pleases knowing she will survive and that anything that incurs her road rage won't.
  • Alice is in the middle of a battlefield with people trying to kill her left, right, center, above and below. If she did not drove like a bat out of hell, she would soon be dead.
  • Bob is The Stoner. If there is a perfect example about the lesson of drugs and driving not mixing, he is it.
• Inverted:
  • Alice rival, is the best driver in the world.
  • Badass Biker Alice is the best biker in the world.
  • Bob is not aggressive enough as a driver, going well below the speed limit and frequently coming to complete stops while in a Cool Car capable of going well over a thousand miles a second.
  • Bob drives excellently, but is an extremely aggressive pedestrian who could get hit by a speeding car, chase it down on foot, and smash every window just to scream in the driver's face for speeding (and while he's at it, scream at everyone else riding along) before dragging the driver out and beating them wildly.
  • Bob is an Axe-Crazy Cloud Cuckoo Lander, and yet he takes road safety very seriously, even becoming The Comically Serious whenever he gets in the driver's seat.
• Subverted:
  • Bob nearly crashes into another car, but it's the fault of the other driver.
  • Alice nearly drives through a red-light, but stops just in time.
  • Bob is shown driving dangerously, but it's because he's actually a Badass Driver who can weave through the tightest spots to shake whomever's chasing him. His car comes out the other side with nary a scratch.
• Double Subverted:
  • Bob then continues driving and smashes into another car.
  • Alice decides to run the red-light after stopping.
  • Unfortunately, Bob continues his dangerous driving habits even when he isn't being chased.
• Parodied:
  • Whenever Bob starts his car, it cuts to sights of a wrecked town.
  • Anything even remotely shaped like a wheel is a doomsday weapon in Alice's hands.
  • Alice's good luck powers mean she can stomp the gas, go flying down the road, and show up at her destiation safely.
• Zig-Zagged:
  • Bob nearly runs a red light, but stops in time. He then fails to realize when the light has turned green.
  • Alice's driving skills seem to depend on the vehicle being driven: she's a model driver in a family sedan (does not wants kids to learn bad habits) but a rolling threat when in a pickup truck (all of that horsepower turns her on) and Adrian Monk levels of fussiness and over-caution when she has to drive a motorcycle (because she knows she is the one who will have it worse than everybody else if she crashes) and in a boat SpongeBob SquarePants is her role model.
  • Alice treats traffic laws with complete disregard, but is able to avoid crashing into anything.
• Averted:
  • Bob is an average driver.
  • Bob is never given a chance to get behind the steering wheel.
• Lampshaded: "Why is Bob even allowed behind the wheel?"
• Invoked: Bob decided to be as terrible of a driver as possible.
• Exploited:
  • Bob, who knows he's a terrible driver, gets behind a wheel to chase Emperor Evulz.
  • Greg puts Alice behind the wheel to cause chaos.
• Implied: When a certain FYC song plays on the radio, Alice's friends tell her that the Yankovic version fits her better.
• Defied:
  • Bob takes a course from a professional rally racer to improve his driving skills.
  • Bob never gets his driver's license and gets a lifetime ban from anything motor-related
• Discussed: "Where'd Bob get his license, a box of Cracker-jacks?"
• Conversed: "Having someone who drives like this should add some humor/drama to the show."
• Deconstructed: Bob has his license revoked and is not allowed to drive because he's such a bad driver. Or he is never given a license to begin with for being such a bad driver.
• Reconstructed:
  • He still gets behind the wheel despite not having a license.
  • The heroes eventually need someone really, really demented at the wheel for the distraction part of a plan Crazy Enough to Work. They all immediately turn to look at Bob. On his end, Bob not only succeeds at the "distraction" part, he also survives what the rest of the cast saw as a Suicide Mission because the enemy could not hit him at all.
• Played for Laughs:
  • Bob's bad driving causes him to fly out the window of his car with his steering wheel around his neck.
  • The show's about stereotypes, so Alice is naturally a terrible driver.
  • Bob's lousy driving is because he has an extreme case of Attention Deficit... Oh, Shiny!. He cannot be trusted to tie his own shoes, let alone a quarter-of-a-million dollars worth of machinery.
  • Bob's lousy driving is because he tries way too hard to imitate Dominic Toretto. He could not be more Wrong Genre Savvy.
  • There is a Running Gag about Bob constantly meeting one specific driving instructor/test official/traffic cop who becomes increasingly shell shocked from having to deal with the mayhem his driving causes repeatedly.
  • Bob's history of bad driving is plagued with accidents that are too absurd to be true.
  • Bob's insane driving is the cause of little Alice developing an Absurd Phobia for anything car-related.
• Played for Drama:
  • Bob's bad driving kills people, which Bob has to hide from the police.
  • Bob's bad driving killed Alice. Bob may become crazy with regret eventually. Jim is going to put a fire under it (and him).
  • Alice's bad driving gets her and her friends killed in a horrific car crash.
  • Bob is getting shot at. Driving safely is just as lethal, if not more.
  • Bob's insane driving gives little Alice a Trauma Button that her brother Jim spends a tremendous amount of effort trying to help her with and refuses to forgive Bob for creating, probably to the point of annihilating their previous friendship.
• Played for Horror:
  • Bob is literally crazy, and not in the "funny" way either, and he either deliberately uses his car as a murder weapon or is too detached from reality to notice the X-rated carnage he leaves behind.
  • The Zombie Apocalypse/invasion from The Legions of Hell/escape of the slasher villain Legion of Doom from the Bedlam House/death of the school bus full of innocents that leads to the Papa Wolf making a Deal with the Devil is a direct result of Bob having a car collision.
  • Someone gets more than a little upset at being inconvenienced by Bob's bad driving, whether it is being delayed, getting a spike on their heart rate, or being in a fender bender. And we definitely mean more than a little.
  • Bob's driving is portrayed as an intensely traumatizing experience that turn people into shell-shocked ghosts of who they were, more willing to jump in front of a car than get in one for as long as they live.
  • Bob's driving eventually has him hit The Dreaded Humanoid Abomination Emperor Evulz, who promptly gets up, walks over to Bob's car, and punches it so hard that it compacts, killing Bob inside.