Testing Britain's Worst Drivers: Crash Course

This was a programme on ITV last night.

And it was absolutely brilliant!

I'm surprised I haven't read more about it today.  The Radio Times have a listing on it and there was a brief discussion on Pistonheads but apart from that - nothing.

ITV don't even have anything on it apart from on their watch-again service.

There have been many shows in the past - such as "Britain's Worst Driver" - that have shown ordinary people who don't care about how they drive.  The shows go on to demonstrate how bad these individuals are and hopefully cure them.

This show last night felt like it was going to be one of those.  That's OK - I like those shows.

It was narrated by Jamie Theakston - a stalwart of narrating motorway cop shows and the like.

But this had a twist.

The first poor driver (poor as in "bad" not as in "unfortunate") was Jason, a fancy-dress shop owner who was aggressive on the road and ignored red traffic lights and speed limits:

His friend's expression says it all.

 

There was plenty of footage of him whizzing around Blackpool in his blue BMW Z4 breaking rules of the road and traffic laws.

 

The show claimed that the most accident-prone drivers tend to be men aged 35 to 50 who drive blue BMWs.  A perfect match.

 

Anyway, Jason was taken to a test-track and told to drive a Mini around while sat next to an instructor.  The instructor had him calmed down and he was driving perfectly safely.

 

Before I continue, I would actually recommend you watch this show - as previously mentioned it is on the ITVPlayer, but if you aren't going to, or it's past ITVPlayer time or you are abroad somewhere, then I will go on...

 

The footage from inside the Mini looked a bit like they were sat in a driving simulator.  But the footage from outside showed the car moving around the track matching what was happening inside. 

 

Must have been a camera-effect then.

 

Anyway, they came to some traffic-light controlled roadworks and Jason came to a stop at the red light - as you or I would but as he previously may not have.

 

The lights turn green and he set's off, slowly and steadily.

 

He then stalls.

 

Or, more precisely - it is stalled for him - but he doesn't know this.

 

As he's fiddling trying to restart the car, you see a blue BMW Z4 heading straight for his door.  The instructor yells "Look out!", Jason looks out and has the shock of his life.

 

It turns out he was in a simulator that he had been driving for several hours so it felt to him like he was really driving.  It was particularly realistic because his driving was controlling a remote-controlled Mini around the test-track and that Mini has a series of cameras in it to display what was being seen on the simulator.

 

The BMW Z4 (carrying Jason's number plate) was remotely driven into the Mini at high speed to show what happens when people jump red lights.

 

He was left shaking.  He was then taken down to see what had happened to the remote cars and learned that Mini occupants may well have been killed but the Z4 driver (ie him) would probably have survived - with a maximum 14 year jail sentence and the knowledge that he'd killed someone.

 

The second poor driver, Laura, a beauty student, spent all her driving time being distracted by doing make-up, eating and drinking, playing on her Smartphone etc.  She had a white Nissan Juke and the footage of her in it looked downright dangerous - certainly illegal. 

She's pictured with her mother but she was so bad, I'm surprised her mother or anyone else would want to be driven by her.  I know I wouldn't.

 

I'm not convinced that the curing worked as well here.  For a starter, the car that was meant to be hers was an old, white Honda HR-V.

 

Then, after a demonstration of what happens when you are given distractions while driving, she was on her best behaviour and concentrating on what she was doing - so when the distracted Honda came across the road towards her, she avoided it and didn't know that it had then gone on to hit some carefully placed parked cars.

 

If they had had a head-on collision it would have been unforgetable for her.

 

As it was, she was shown the damage that the Honda had done, specifically to the back door of an Escort "where a small child could have been killed if it was strapped into a car-seat in there".

 

She did claim to have been affected by it and stated how she regretted her previous driving and vowed to change.  Hopefully she was telling the truth.

 

Both drivers were revisited a month later and their respective passengers both commented on how they had changed and their driving was noticably improved.

 

So, an excellent, thought-provoking show - catch it if you can.