Season of television series
Canada's Worst Driver 14 | |
---|---|
Season 14 | |
Hosted by | Andrew Younghusband |
Judges |
|
No. of contestants | 7 |
Winner | Brandon Wilkins |
Runner-up | Alexis Pratola |
Location | |
No. of episodes | 8 |
Release | |
Original network | Discovery Channel |
Original release | October 29 (2018-10-29) – December 17, 2018 (2018-12-17) |
Season chronology | |
← Previous Season 13 |
Canada's Worst Driver 14 is the fourteenth and final season of the Canadian competitive reality television series Canada's Worst Driver. This season is the ninth consecutive season filmed at the Dunnville Airport in Dunnville, Ontario. It premiered on October 29, 2018 on the Discovery Channel in Canada. After a final road test in Hamilton, Ontario, the season concluded on December 17, 2018, when Brandon Wilkins was named Canada's Worst Driver.
This season's theme was the "Evolution of Driving" and saw the introduction of several modern technological devices such as GPS navigation, backup cameras, and automatic trailer reversing.
Contestants
This season features seven contestants, down from the eight featured in the previous season.
Contestant | Age | From | Vehicle | Notes | Finish |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Ryan Whittier | 39 | Bedford, Nova Scotia |
Mercedes-Benz C-Class | Father of three who, in addition to being an aggressive driver, has also driven while impaired. | 1st graduate |
Darris Wilderman | 22 | Calgary, Alberta |
Chevrolet Avalanche | Drives aggressively and has written off four cars and accumulated over 100 traffic tickets. | 2nd graduate |
Karlene Bowen | 62 | Airdrie, Alberta |
BMW X5 | Uncomfortable behind the wheel due to being struck by a vehicle as a pedestrian 13 years ago, requiring two years of recovery and physiotherapy. | 3rd graduate |
Descyara "Descy" McMurray | 28 | Campbellford, Ontario |
Hyundai Accent | Self-taught "erratic and reckless" driver nominated after getting into six collisions in just over one year. | 4th graduate |
Brittany Dube | 32 | Victoria, British Columbia |
Hyundai Elantra | Suffers from "severe anxiety", accumulated approximately 60 traffic tickets, texts "all the time when drive". | 5th graduate |
Alexis Pratola | 21 | Thunder Bay, Ontario |
Hyundai Elantra | Distracted driver; damaged six cars and was T-boned with her infant daughter on board. | Runner-up |
Brandon Wilkins | 20 | Saint John, New Brunswick |
Toyota Corolla | Only licensed for 10 months. Struggles with basic driving skills and is impatient while operating a vehicle, leading to 35 accidents and five cars being written off. He also experiences anxiety while driving, which sometimes manifests itself as aggression. | Worst |
Experts
- Cam Woolley is the show's longest-serving expert, having been present in every season except the first and has seen the habits of Canadian drivers change drastically since 2000, with the most common offense having changed from DUI to distracted driving. He is the traffic expert on CP24 in Toronto and had a 25-year career as a traffic sergeant with the Ontario Provincial Police.
- Philippe Létourneau is a veteran high-speed driving instructor who counts BMW and Ferrari among his clients. Since joining the show in the third season, the average car has gained considerably in speed and acceleration, making his job a particularly important one.
- Shyamala Kiru is the show's resident psychotherapist and relationship expert, a position which has become more demanding each year since joining the show in the seventh season, as the stresses in driving and everyday life seem to always be on the increase.
- Tim Danter is the show's head driving instructor, a position he has held since joining the show in the eighth season. In this position, he not only gives the drivers help and instructions for challenges, but gives them further lessons off-screen.
Challenge history
For further information on challenge results, see § Episodes below.
Ep. | Challenge | Contestant | ||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Brandon | Alexis | Brittany | Descy | Karlene | Darris | Ryan | ||
1 | Basic Assessment | 2/3 | ||||||
2 | Riding the Rails | Grad. | ||||||
Head-to-Head Reversing | — | |||||||
Eye of the Needle | ||||||||
3 | Limo Figure-Eight Challenge | |||||||
The Trough | ||||||||
The Shoulder Check Challenge | ||||||||
4 | Distracted Driving | — | ||||||
Swerve and Avoid | ||||||||
5 | Canada's Worst Parking Lot | Grad. | ||||||
Trailer Reversing | ||||||||
Reverse Flick | ||||||||
6 | The Teeter-Totter | |||||||
Forward Handbrake J-Turn | ||||||||
Water Tank Challenge | 75 L | 115 L | 50 L | 40 L | 75 L | |||
7 | Know Your Limits Slalom Challenge | Grad. | ||||||
The Cross Challenge | ||||||||
Icy Corner | ||||||||
8 | The Forward and Reverse Slalom | Grad. | ||||||
Mega Challenge | 1/3 | 2/3 | 2/3 |
Episodes
No. in season | Title | Original air date | |
---|---|---|---|
1 | "Start Your Engines!" | October 29, 2018 (2018-10-29) | |
Seven contestants make their way from Niagara Falls, Ontario to the Driver Rehabilitation Centre at Dunnville Airport via GPS. Except for Ryan and Darris, who both drove perfectly, most of the other drivers make a large number of moving violations on the way to rehab. Karlene arrives last as her GPS was mistakenly set to the Toronto Pearson International Airport. In a brand-new Ford Mustang GT, contestants complete all three segments of the Basic Assessment: reversing through a narrow path, navigating a corral of concrete barriers, and zigzagging past obstacles in a slalom. Ryan passes all segments of the challenge without a single hit; Darris only passes two segments (having hit the concrete corral twice). The remaining five drivers all fail the challenge, with Brandon accelerating up to over 90 km/h (56 mph) in the slalom segment after hitting the last three foam people and skidding off the course. Due to the exceptionally awful performances by most of the drivers, Shyamala suggests graduating Ryan immediately so as to give the remaining contestants their full attention, citing Ryan's flawless driving both to rehab and in the assessment challenge (along with the fact that in between his audition video and promo footage, Ryan had given up driving with his cellphone). Ryan is the panel's unanimous choice to graduate in the first episode. | |||
2 | "Look Where You Wanna Go" | November 5, 2018 (2018-11-05) | |
The first real challenge of the season, Riding the Rails, requires driving a Suzuki Sidekick along a set of rails and then reversing the car along the same rails back to where they started. Falling off the rails and getting stuck will lead to an instant fail. Darris passes the challenge with ease. Alexis, Descy, Brittany, and Brandon don't have much trouble getting across going forwards, but fail at reversing due to not adjusting their side-view mirrors. Karlene falls off before even getting a full length of the vehicle onto the rails. Next, contestants compete in the Head-to-Head Reversing challenge, in which pairs of drivers reverse one Ford Crown Victoria each down a lane, turn around in a circular area and then reverse back up the lane they started in. Before the challenge starts, Tim gives each driver a lesson in reversing. All contestants end up hitting obstacles, leading to a failure. Since Darris passed the assessment challenge's reversing segment in the previous episode, he is exempt from this challenge; instead, Tim takes Darris on a public drive through Hamilton. Contestants then have to drive the Mustang at 70 km/h (43 mph) through a course of five foam arches. Karlene smashes the last three arches, the high speed causing a panic attack that took six minutes to subside. Alexis and Descy both speed up past 90 km/h (56 mph) and crash into arches – Alexis hits every other arch, Descy only hits the last one. Brittany smashes the last two arches, knocking out the vehicle's passenger side headlight. Brandon and Darris both complete the challenge successfully, but the stress of the challenge causes Brandon to suffer a panic attack. In deliberation, Darris is the only driver who wants to graduate, but the experts all agree it would be a disservice if Darris graduated; citing his history of violence and road rage and the fact he has an assault charge pending at home convinces them that, as superior as his technical skills, they would be of absolutely no help if he got into an accident through road rage. At what would have been the graduation ceremony, Andrew bluntly informs Darris that, despite performing the best this episode, his road rage prevented him from graduating. | |||
3 | "Check. Check." | November 12, 2018 (2018-11-12) | |
To teach contestants proper mirror usage and further illustrate the concept of front-end swing, the drivers are each placed at the wheel of a 1990 Buick Estate station wagon in the Limo Figure-Eight Challenge. Tasked with reversing the vehicle around a figure-eight course with an emphasis on driving accuracy rather than speed, Descy, Darris, and Brittany all finish the course without any hits. Alexis and Karlene both finish the course with several hits. While completing the challenge, Brandon loses his nerve and falls apart. In The Trough, designed to test the drivers' knowledge of where their wheels are, they each have 30 minutes to take as many attempts as needed to drive the Suzuki Sidekick, equipped with a bird's-eye view camera screen as part of the season's "Evolution of Driving" theme, through a short course made up of concrete barriers placed on their side, without letting the wheels touch the ground between the barriers. Alexis and Darris both pass the course; Brandon, Descy, Brittany, and Karlene all fail the challenge, mainly by not turning wide enough. In the final challenge, the Shoulder-Check Challenge, the speed control and shoulder-checking ability of each driver is tested by requiring them to drive the Ford Mustang up a straightaway at 70 km/h (43 mph), check over both shoulders then turn into the indicated lane at the end of the straight. Alexis, Brandon, Descy, Brittany, and Karlene all fail by hitting the lane markers, with Brandon speeding up to 90 km/h (56 mph) and Karlene slowing down to 25 km/h (16 mph). Darris passes the challenge with no difficulty. In deliberation, for the second week in a row, Darris is the only driver who wants to graduate, being the only one to pass every challenge thus far, but once again, Jen's fears that Darris' road rage will return if he graduates and goes home. Despite performing the best this episode, Darris did not graduate. | |||
4 | "Crash. Bang. Boom." | November 19, 2018 (2018-11-19) | |
While the experts consider Darris to be the season's best performer overall for being the only driver who passed every single challenge, Cam suggests that, since Darris' only problem is his road rage on public roads, they'll offer Darris another public drive and if he can successfully complete it, he'll be allowed to graduate; otherwise, for the third episode in a row, no one will graduate. Before the drive begins, Darris apologizes to Tim for his previous comment about disliking him and for the lack of driver commentary in the earlier public drive. The drive in question subsequently goes with no issues and, even though Darris is the only person who expresses any wish to graduate and vows never to be distracted at the wheel again, the experts are split on how Darris should leave rehab; Cam and Shyamala are in favour of simply releasing Darris for showing no desire to change his personality, while Philippe feels that they should focus on the others (something Shyamala suggested in the first episode), which Andrew agrees with, although Andrew disagrees with Cam that they're wasting their time with Darris, leaving Tim to cast the deciding vote. At the graduation ceremony, Andrew announces that Darris, who only narrowly missed graduating in the first episode on the grounds that Ryan drove flawlessly on the Assessment Challenge, is only the season's second graduate. | |||
5 | "Back It Up!" | November 26, 2018 (2018-11-26) | |
When meeting with the experts, Brittany's crash history is brought up (she says she has hit at most 50 cars, while crew members who are asked admit to hitting no more than two cars), along with her tendency to pay for damages out of pocket instead of informing her insurance company. Brittany admits that in order to afford those payments, she usually takes overtime shifts at her job and tearfully admits that it is starting to take a toll on her, as she has no healthy outlet outside of work. For the fourth time this season, nobody expresses interest in graduating and while Andrew is shocked that nobody has once believed that they were ready for graduation (aside from Ryan and Darris, both of whom have graduated), the panel honours their request and, as per tradition, nobody graduates in the fifth episode. | |||
6 | "Ups and Downs" | December 3, 2018 (2018-12-03) | |
With no one else desiring to graduate, Karlene is shortlisted on the basis of her improvement in challenges and her ability to now drive on the highway alone; however, the experts call her desire to actually continue driving into question. Karlene requests one more lesson with Tim to ensure that she is ready. After a discussion which also includes Darrell agreeing to said drive, Karlene technically graduates, intending on receiving the final lesson with Tim before leaving. However, she ultimately ends up refusing it, confessing she is worried she will return to her old ways at home. She later wrote to the show, saying that not only was she unable to drive after returning home, but she had to receive counseling due to her negative experiences while on the program. She described being on Canada's Worst Driver as "one of the worst experiences I ever had." | |||
7 | "Slippery When Wet" | December 10, 2018 (2018-12-10) | |
At the beginning of the episode, Andrew reveals that a fan by the name of Will Vanda sent him a letter thanking the show for teaching him the Swerve and Avoid technique, as it saved him from a fatal accident. In response, Andrew invited Will to the rehab centre so he himself, the panel and the production crew could all hear it and thank him in person.
When meeting with the experts, both Brandon and Brittany reaffirm their promise to quit driving if named Canada's Worst Driver. While Brittany plans to start taking the bus if she wins the title, Brandon plans to start from scratch, Alexis still remains defiant on the front of giving up driving if she were to win the title. Descy wants to graduate, even showing the panel that she recently had the word "focus" tattooed on her left hand. Despite the fact that Alexis, Brandon and Brittany have already filled up the three spots for the final episode, Andrew reveals to Descy that half the panel wanted to keep her around for the final episode, while the other half felt that she should graduate (it is unknown which experts wanted to keep Descy around for the final episode and which experts wanted to graduate her). Ultimately, Andrew, who was left with the deciding vote, opts to let Descy graduate, as she has not only shown herself to be the most improved, but he strongly believes her promise to commit to safe driving, once again ensuring that, for the tenth year in a row, there will not be an all-female finale, sending Alexis into the finale with Brandon and Brittany. Coincidentally, this makes it the first time in a Canada's Worst Driver season where every finalist was never once shortlisted as a potential graduate, even the first time when only one driver was shortlisted the entire season. | |||
8 | "The Final Three" | December 17, 2018 (2018-12-17) | |
In their final meeting with the experts, Brittany credits Tim for her commitment and perfect final drive. Despite a relatively good finish to an otherwise disastrous road test, Alexis admits that she might be Canada's Worst Driver due to not being as invested in the process as she should have been. Brandon is lambasted for his unstable emotions and ignorance of road rules; however, he refuses to believe he is Canada's Worst Driver. While Brandon's drive was clearly the worst, Cam argues that Alexis should be named joint-worst with Brandon, given the fact she still performed worse than others who were named the worst in the past, with Shyamala also concerned that, even if Alexis doesn't graduate, she won't make any efforts to improve as a driver after leaving rehab. At the trophy ceremony, Brittany is named the final graduate for her massive improvements and learning to focus at the wheel, with Andrew saying she had one of the greatest turnarounds in the show's history, as she was one of the most unaware and accident-prone drivers before rehab. After Brittany leaves, Andrew makes the announcement that, in the end, Brandon is Canada's Worst Driver because of his unpredictable emotions, being unable to process the lessons he was taught and his disastrous final drive. Alexis, therefore, fails to graduate and Andrew cuts up a copy of her license to drive home the point that she remains a very unsafe driver who still has much to learn, something Alexis reacts angrily to, believing that she deserved to graduate and is driven away by Gerry. In the end, Brandon cuts up his license and Andrew awards him the trophy before Sarah drives him home as not only the final person ever to be named Canada's Worst Driver, but also the last man. In the closing voice-over, Andrew reveals that Brandon has kept his promise and has not driven once in the five months since filming. |
Graduation table
Contestant | Episode | ||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
No. | Name | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 |
1 | Brandon | IN | IN | IN | IN | IN | IN | IN | CWD |
2 | Alexis | IN | IN | IN | IN | IN | IN | IN | RUNNER-UP |
3 | Brittany | IN | IN | IN | IN | IN | IN | IN | GRAD |
4 | Descy | IN | IN | IN | IN | IN | IN | GRAD | — |
5 | Karlene | IN | IN | IN | IN | IN | GRAD | — | |
6 | Darris | IN | IN* | IN* | GRAD | — | |||
7 | Ryan | GRAD | — |
- * The contestant was on the panel's shortlist.
- The contestant graduated.
- The contestant was the runner-up for Canada's Worst Driver.
- The contestant became Canada's Worst Driver.
Episodes 2 and 3 were non-elimination weeks, due to Darris' pending assault charge and history of violence and road rage, and to Jen's fears that Darris' road rage might return if he graduates early, respectively.
Episode 5 was a non-elimination week, due to all contestants wanting to remain at the Driver Rehabilitation Centre and all contestants (except Alexis) failing the Reverse Flick.
References
- ^ "Canada's Worst Driver". Discovery. Archived from the original on October 5, 2017. Retrieved October 19, 2018.
- ^ "CANADA'S WORST DRIVER Season 14 Participant Bios". Bell Media. Retrieved October 25, 2018.
- "Peterborough area woman in the running for Canada's Worst Driver". The Peterborough Examiner. October 12, 2018. Archived from the original on June 19, 2023.
- "Victoria woman competes on Canada's Worst Driver". Victoria News. October 29, 2018. Archived from the original on October 24, 2021.
- Jung, Christina (November 10, 2018). "'I was very delusional': A ride-along with Thunder Bay's most improved driver". CBC News. Archived from the original on March 21, 2023.
External links
Canada's Worst Driver | |||||||||
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Cast |
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Related shows |