Canada's Worst Driver 3

Experts

• Cam Woolley is a traffic sergeant with the Ontario Provincial Police who has seen the habits of Canadian drivers change drastically since 2000, with the most common offense having changed from DUI to distracted driving.
• Philippe Létourneau is a high-performance driving instructor with the Jim Russell Racing School, having been also featured on Discovery's Star Racer series. He is also a lead driving instructor for BMW Driver Training and the "Ferrari Driving Experience" at the Mont Tremblant race track. Philippe has enjoyed a successful career with over 40 podium finishes in 120 race starts.
• Dr. Louisa Gembora is a psychologist who worked at the Hamilton Psychiatric Hospital in Hamilton, Ontario before moving on to private practice in 1994. She drives a race car in her spare time.
• Scott Marshall is the show's head driving instructor, a position he has held since 2005.

  Contestants

• Shelby D'Souza, 30 and licensed for four years, from Calgary, Alberta, is an overly cautious forklift operator, to the point in which he spends five seconds facing a green light before moving his car... and even then, he drives slowly. In sharp contrast to road rage, he is far too generous at the wheel and his younger brother, Elerick D'Souza, believes that he will be rear-ended in an accident soon before he can change his ways. He drives a beige Chevrolet Blazer and drove a beige Mazda Protege to the rehab centre.
• Thomas Hobbs, 21, from Lloydminster, Alberta, is an aspiring street racer who has claimed to have gone at over 240 km/h on a highway. Thomas is constantly taking risks behind the wheel, enjoying life on the fast line. He is nominated by his older sister, Lenora Hobbs, because she does not believe that he is in control of his car. He drives a gray GMC Sierra 2500 and drove a blue Ford Explorer to the rehab centre.
• Denice Koke, 33, from Cranbrook, British Columbia, is an emotional wreck at the wheel and believes that this is the reason that she is too reliant on nominator and husband, Henry Koke, a truck driver, for their family activities. She believes that this is interfering in her children's lives, especially her son, who had to be pulled out of a local hockey league because she was not confident driving him to games. She drives a red Dodge Grand Caravan.
• Jennifer Kritzer, 22, from Hamilton, Ontario, is a floral delivery driver who is also extremely accident-prone, proudly admitting to being involved in a large number of hit-and-run accidents. She is nominated by her boyfriend, Jon Park, who later committed suicide in 2014. She drives a silver Ford Focus.
• Billie-Jean Leslie, 22 and licensed for four years, from Victoria, British Columbia, is a student and hairdresser who is more concentrated on looking good than looking at the road. She only uses her car's mirrors for applying makeup and has on numerous occasions changed clothes while at the wheel, all of which leading to 16 accidents since getting her license, including 12 in a single year and four license suspensions. She is nominated by her cousin, Nicola Coulter. She drives a gray Mazda 323 and drove a beige Mitsubishi Lancer to the rehab centre.
• Marnie Maddison, 41, from Calgary, Alberta, is extremely nervous at the wheel and not confident in going anywhere other than her workplace, preferring to starve over driving to the grocery store. Because of this, she is on her eighth learner's permit and has never mustered the confidence to take a final road test. Worse yet, she has no one to turn to, as her boyfriend and nominator, Bruce Toye, is frequently out of town in his job as an airline pilot. She drives a silver Honda Civic and drove a silver Ford Taurus to the rehab centre.
• Edward "Ed" Porter, 43, from Ottawa, Ontario, is a biologist with an extreme road rage problem, which has torn apart his relationship with his nominator and ex-girlfriend, Elizabeth Cecchi. He enters rehabilitation in an effort to address his road rage, which causes their children to vomit whenever he is driving, but also as a step towards reconciliation of their broken common-law relationship. He drives a black Saturn Ion and drove a green Ford Focus to the rehab centre.
• Jason Zhang, 42, from Vancouver, British Columbia, is a travel consultant who, when driving, has a case of "extreme tunnel vision," making him unable to see what's around or directly in front of him. Because of this, he relishes gridlock and always parks in the most expensive parking stalls to avoid others. He is nominated by his husband, Adrian Fehr. He drives a silver Honda Civic and drove a blue Ford Focus to the rehab centre.

  Synopsis

Episode 1: Rock Bottom

• The Drive to Rehab: This season, the journey to the Driver Rehabilitation Centre starts from a granite quarry in Mariposa Beach, Ontario, with the eight contestants heading to rehab using a provided set of instructions, a journey that Andrew notes should take an average driver with good knowledge of directions like himself an hour to complete. The contestants first drive following a list of 20 turns to Carthew Bay, a convenience store on Lakeshore Road East in Orillia, Ontario, take a map and follow the directions another to the Edgar Adult Occupational Centre, a vocational school that closed down in 1999, where the contestants will have their drivers' licenses confiscated. The contestants depart in the following order: Jason, Marnie, Shelby, Jennifer, Denice, Billie-Jean, Thomas and Ed. Jason gets off to a slow start, narrowly missing his first stop sign, while Marnie is nervous because there may be left turns without "flashers" and Shelby quickly gets himself lost. Jennifer and Denice are the next ones out. By the time Billie-Jean leaves, Jason has already reached the convenience store. Thomas is the next to leave and tries to get there as quickly as possible, even though he contends that it is not a race. He does manage to pass Billie-Jean and Jason in the effort to get ahead. Ed is the last person to leave the quarry. Everyone makes a large number of moving violations on the way to rehab and the contestants arrive in the following order: Thomas, Jason, Ed, Marnie, Shelby, Billie-Jean, Jennifer and Denice.
• *First to Arrive: Thomas was the first to arrive.
• *Last to Arrive: Denice was the last.
• Reversing Race: In the first proper challenge, held at Barrie Speedway, Canada's Worst Drivers each take one lap around the track in stock cars while driving in reverse, in front of a racecar audience. Marnie races against Ed in the first heat, followed by Billie-Jean against Jason in the second heat, while Jennifer races against Thomas and Denice against Shelby. Though there were three disqualifications, while Thomas finishes with the fastest time. Surprisingly, Jennifer, who has a fear of driving in reverse, finishes second, followed by Shelby, Billie-Jean and Denise, who overcame her desire to vomit while actually racing.
• *Fastest Performer: Thomas performed the fastest at :40.
• *Slowest Performer: Denice performed the slowest at :59, although Ed, Marnie and Jason were all disqualified for fishtailing out of control, completely letting go of the wheel and Adrian grabbing at the steering wheel, respectively.
• Skills Evaluation: In the second challenge, the drivers must reverse a Ford Mustang out of a garage, down a driveway, up and down a ramp, before heading forwards at 30 km/h in a giant slalom-like course, stopping so that their car straddles a red line painted at the ground. Following the slalom portion, the drivers must use precision driving to move slowly through an obstacle course before reversing and parking at a nearby parking space. Marnie is first to take the challenge, requiring 131 attempts merely to leave the driveway, while Denice hits 34 things and takes 57 minutes. Ed hits 54 things, although his driving wasn't helped by Elizabeth's screaming. Billie-Jean is the first to check her mirrors, although this does nothing to help, as she hits 46 things, mainly due to speeding. Thomas is next and, despite a strong start, hits 24 things, mainly due to the same reason Billie-Jean hit 46 things during her run-- speeding. Jason has the biggest problem of all the drivers-- a passenger who won't stop grabbing the wheel. Jennifer and Shelby fare arguably the worst in this challenge, as both completely destroy the precision driving portion of the course while attempting to stop after the slalom -- furthermore, Jennifer, who finished with 31 hits, had accelerated into the obstacles-- something she has done at home and fled the scene, a felony which Andrew states is incriminating evidence and Sgt. Cam states is a criminal offense in all of Canada-- while Shelby, who finished with 17 hits in two seconds and unable to complete the challenge, had been clocked under the required speed in the slalom.

  Episode 2: Car Confidential

• Burning Out: After each contestant was given a lesson on how to do burnouts and donuts by high-performance instructor Phillipe Létourneau, each contestant must maintain a ten-second burnout and then perform a full-circle wide donut around a foam figure before driving out of the area. By refusing the lesson, Thomas, who did the challenge successfully after five attempts, automatically failed the challenge. Jason and Marnie fail due to hitting the foam figure, while the surprises in the challenge were Shelby and Denice. Billie-Jean was also notable in taking an entire night to do the challenge, having made donuts while circling around the figure, but not a wide donut all the way around.
• Eye of the Needle: In this year's edition of the perennial traditional challenge, the drivers must go through a series of foam archways which are only half a lane wide while having to maintain a speed of over 40 km/h. Unlike previous years, they are forced to retry the course if they hit an archway or fail to maintain speed, up to a maximum of five attempts. A number of contestants managed to finish in only two attempts, while Thomas took three attempts, Shelby took four attempts because his first three were well under the limit. Marnie quits the challenge after four attempts, while Jason used up all five of his attempts. Ed, despite having revealed that he has a case of tunnel vision even when wearing glasses, also manages to successfully finish despite his doubts that the challenge was even possible.
• Broken Hearts: In this year's variation of the figure-eight challenge, the contestants pair off, both starting at one-end of a figure-eight course and having to reverse through it, where the midpoint and a spot at the other end of the figure-eight course are the only passing points. Unlike previous years, though, the loops are slightly elongated so as to create a heart shape. Thomas and Jennifer are the first pairing, while Jason and Shelby go second. Billie-Jean and Ed are third, while Denice and Marnie make up the final heat. Thomas is by far the best driver, being both the fastest and hitting the fewest obstacles, but his running mate gets her car stuck in between two car obstacles. Similarly, Shelby gets his car stuck, although he is courteous in allowing Jason to move right through the midway point when he pulls past the passing point. Although Ed focuses on finishing the challenge the best way possible, Elizabeth is frustrated at Ed's courteousness to Billie-Jean and is even more frustrated when he allows Billie-Jean to overtake him at the halfway point and finish faster. Denice and Marnie nearly break down over their significant others and Andrew steps in to force the nominators to switch cars slightly after the midway point. Because of this, though, the contestants end up hitting dramatically fewer obstacles, though Denice still hits 71 and Marnie 78.

Episode 3: Cool Bus

• Cool Bus: In Canada, one cannot legally drive a school bus with a regular G Class license unless the bus was not labeled as such and most of the seats were removed. In this challenge, after everyone is given lessons on parallel parking, the contestants must reverse the "Cool Bus" down a street littered with cars and rims before parallel parking the bus on the left side of a hill. Jennifer nearly breaks down in the challenge, but ends up finishing the challenge with a perfect run. Parallel parking is also not a problem for Thomas or Billie-Jean, though both do hit obstacles, as does Ed and Marnie, with the former's nominator wanting to quit rehab, which would have either left Ed without a nominator for the remainder of rehab or led to Ed being expelled from rehab if Elizabeth cancelled their shared insurance policy by quitting. At the other end of the spectrum, Jason and Shelby had to have their courses modified so that all the obstacles were removed—Jason from frustration and wanting to quit rehab and Shelby from having moved only 10 feet after 30 minutes of driving the bus and causing over $12,000 in damages.
• *Fastest Performer: Jennifer performed the fastest, although her time was not shown.
• *Slowest Performer: Billie-Jean performed the slowest at 45:08.
• *Best Performer: Jennifer, Thomas and Billie-Jean were the only three people to pass this challenge, with Jennifer doing slightly better.
• *Worst Performer: Jason and Shelby were the worst, to the point both had the course modified so that all the obstacles were removed.
• Swerve and Avoid: The contestants are in a car that lacks anti-lock brakes for a simple accident avoidance course—they must accelerate to 50 km/h before crossing a yellow line, where they must engage the brakes. When they reach a fork in the road, both of which have obstacles, one will move aside. The drivers must then recover from the skid and drive through their opening to safety. The drivers have up to five attempts to finish this task. Billie-Jean gets this on her first try, while developing a habit of wearing flats instead of the stilettos she normally wears. Thomas, no stranger to swerving, also finishes on his first try. Marnie and Shelby take multiple tries to finish, as does Jason, while Ed and Jennifer do not finish at all.
• *Best Performer: Thomas and Billie-Jean were the only two people to pass this challenge, with Billie-Jean doing slightly better.
• *Worst Performer: Ed and Jennifer were the worst, due to his tunnel vision and her frustration, respectively.
• Road Signs: Scott gives a simple quiz on their knowledge of road signs. Thomas answers all 13 signs correctly, while Jason only manages four.
• Canada's Worst Parking Lot: In the annual parking lot challenge, the seven contestants are given seven cars and must park in whatever parking stalls are available. However, any moving violation will result in the contestant penalized by being forced to drive out of the parking lot and take a penalty lap. As the challenge goes on, blocker cars will also attempt to either serve as moving obstacles or park momentarily in one of the available stalls. As the challenge starts, Jason is the first to be penalized by inadvertently backing into Marnie out of the gate. Billie-Jean is the first to park, followed by Ed when Jason is forced to take a penalty lap when he hits a car while backing into a stall. When Ed is asked to take the role of a blocker, it allows Thomas to back into the stall he vacates, making him the third to park. Shelby parks next and does so without taking penalty laps, while Jason finally finds a spot to parallel park. In the battle for the last spot, Marnie is in the best position to take it, but is forced to take a penalty lap when she hits a barrel, giving Jennifer the opening needed to steal the spot, leaving Marnie out of luck.

Episode 4: Skid Marks

• The Balance-Beam for Unbalanced Drivers: In one of the most heavily hyped challenges of the season, two cars, controlled by a contestant in one and their nominator in the other, must try to balance the cars out on a teeter-totter rig. The cars are mic'd up to each other to facilitate communication and a complex rail and chain system prevents the cars from hitting each other or go off the teeter-totter. Ed and Elizabeth, in a surprising show of patience, manage to balance out the fastest. Shelby and Billie-Jean also manage to balance out after a lot of work, as does Jennifer after watching Jon adjust and laughing in the meantime for half her run. Neither Jason nor Marnie finish the challenge, as both pairs had given up after about an hour.
• Driving on Ice: To simulate the icy conditions of winter within the summer driving season, a hydraulic skid car is employed. The hydraulic car is set to raise one end of the car via remote control. After being given skid car instructions by 28-year veteran ice driving instructor John Powell, the contestants take on a simple challenge in the skid car: they must simply go downhill in the skid car in what is more or less a straightaway in park in front of a wall, being fully aware that the skid car may activate during the trip. Marnie, confident in her belief that any skid on ice will result in a car crash, is completely surprised at the result-- a perfect run, showing that she needn't drive in fear of an ice skid. The single run shoots her confidence through the roof. As for Jason, he believes that he would skid into the wall and thus accelerates into the wall to regain control, destroying the skid car and terminating the challenge.
• Parking Cross: In a simple challenge, a car is situated within a small cross and the challenge is to park in the four arms of the cross, which can be done in at least 29 turns. Marnie is surprisingly the fastest at the run and Billie-Jean puts up another strong performance. Ed once again lets his aggression gets the best of him, while Jennifer nearly breaks down. Jason's biggest challenge is not to let Adrian get the best of him, while Shelby's run is none too spectacular.
• *Fastest Performer: Marnie performed the fastest at 13:11.
• *Slowest Performer: Jennifer performed the slowest at 46:52.
• Riding a Bike: Scott has always compared driving to riding a bike. The fact that Shelby has had no experience in riding a bike leads Andrew to teach him. Although he struggles to ride with the training wheels off, after two hours and 18 minutes, Shelby has achieved his only other lifelong dream.
• Stick-Shift Driving: In this simple driving challenge, after being given a lesson on stick-shift driving by Scott, the contestants must take a standard transmission car and drive it up a straightaway, perform a three-point turn and back down the same straightaway. Three of the remaining contestants have experience in driving stick-shift and for Marnie, it shows as she scores a near-perfect run. Ed and Billie-Jean are the other two, although Ed quickly gets into anger-trouble while Billie-Jean stalls her car as she makes the turn, starting off a dangerous chain reaction in her behaviour. Adrian also has experience in stick-shift, but it does not pass onto Jason as he hits obstacles and stalls the car repeatedly in his run, nearly breaking down on the return leg. Jennifer breaks down and needs a smoke break at the turn, while Shelby burns out his clutch in his car, forcing him to redo the challenge in a backup car. He stalls the car 38 times in the new car and nearly burns out the clutch there as well.
• *Best Performer: Marnie nearly had a perfect run, only hitting obstacles at the end.
• *Worst Performer: Shelby did the worst, killing the clutch in the first car and nearly burning out the clutch in the second car.

Episode 5: Bumpy Road Ahead

• Handbrake J-Turn: After high-performance instructor Phillipe Létourneau gives everyone lessons on how to do a 180° handbrake skid turn from driving straight ahead at 40 km/h, the contestants must attempt to perform this maneuver within limited confines. Shelby does this on his second attempt, while for Ed, it takes six attempts, largely because he had used the footbrakes instead. For everyone else, this takes four attempts-- Jason because of turning too soon or too late, Jennifer over using the footbrakes instead of the hand brake and Billie-Jean because of not looking where she wanted to go.
• S-Bend Race: In the Broken Hearts challenge, a frustrated Jennifer had asked for instructions on how to move the car laterally, but nevertheless got herself stuck. In this challenge, the method to do so, known as the S-bend, will be given to everyone. The contestants must use the S-bend to maneuver their car sideways towards a concrete barrier and then back towards their starting point. Contestants will be racing against each other and each car has paint rollers mounted so as to clearly see contact with the barriers on the three closed-off sides. Jason has the privilege of being the odd-man out, driving as Andrew demonstrates the challenge. He is also the fastest to finish at 12 minutes and is grateful for the show staff not allowing him to give up driving during the Cool Bus challenge. Shelby, racing against Jennifer is the slowest at the challenge, having taken 30 minutes to drive off of the starting position and another 30 minutes to finish after doing this. He also had the most paint contacts with 12, a far cry from everyone else.
• Driving Off-Road: In this challenge, purposely built by Central Ontario 4×4 Club for this show, the drivers must take an off-road truck and drive through several off-road obstacles, which includes a series of hairpin turns. At the end of the course, they must reverse through it back to the starting point. Ed is the first to go and, unlike previous challenges, keeps his cool as Elizabeth is screaming and makes an acceptable run. In another twist, the contestant will be in the passenger seat of the contestant following them. Each contestant will also pass on a piece of safety advice when doing this challenge—driving the challenge with their thumbs up. Ed does this to Jason, whose run was acceptable, but Jason forgets the safety message as Shelby takes the wheel. Shelby has the worst run of the day and convinces Jennifer that her run is better than his. Billie-Jean, going last, has the best run of the day, patient in both directions.
• *Best Performer: Billie-Jean's patience pays off in this challenge, finishing with the best run of the day.
• *Slowest Performer: Shelby did the worst statistically.
• The Water-Tank Challenge: In the annual tradition, the contestants must go through an obstacle course with a roof-mounted water tank filled with of water. If the contestants do not brake smoothly, the contents of the water tank will drain though a series of tubes leading to the occupants inside the car. This year's twist, however, is that at the end of the obstacle course is a high-speed portion: the drivers must slowly accelerate up to 30 km/h and slowly brake. Only Jason is prepared for the challenge, largely because he has to repeat the acceleration portion five times, either because of not keeping up speed or hitting a side barrier while accelerating, but still loses over of water, yet he still thinks he's graduating. Shelby loses the least amount of water ; however, she lost of water. Ed's run had Elizabeth screaming repeatedly whenever he got wet, but again, he maintained composure and lost only of water.

Episode 6: Unhappy Trails

• Trailer Ride: In Ontario, drivers may carry a trailer with a maximum height of. In this challenge, after each contestant was given lessons in trailer driving, the contestants must drive such a trailer through a hairpin turn, up a hill and then parallel park the vehicle when an oncoming emergency vehicle approaches. When the emergency vehicle passes, the contestants must continue up the hill and park in reverse in a parking space. Shelby is the best of the bunch, even though it still took him 15 minutes to parallel park, largely because he tells Elerick to get out of the car when he needs help. The rest of the contestants take over 30 minutes each to parallel park and Jason destroys his own trailer as he makes his final park.
• Stopping: Andrew notes that Adrian is one of the most controlling husbands who have appeared on the show, if not the most controlling. To show how much of an influence this can get on Jason, Scott monitors the pair as they try to brake from 40 km/h, with and without Adrian at the passenger seat. The conclusion: Jason is better off without Adrian at the wheel.
• The Maze: In what's only the season's second navigation challenge, the contestants must navigate their car out of a maze. The contestants are given a map of the maze before the start of the challenge, and they are free to make copies of the maze on paper before they begin. Ed is the fastest out of the maze and with the fewest hits-– mainly as Elizabeth had copied the maze diagram and navigated their way out-– though at the end, Ed was heading out of the maze in reverse. Jason and Jennifer hit many things on their runs for different reasons. Shelby mistrusts his meticulously drawn map and he gets stuck in the maze in the tightest of spaces—so much that when he finally makes it out, the car engine starts to overheat.
• The Slalom: After Phillippe gives instructions to everyone on how to do a slalom while maintaining 40 km/h, the contestants attempt to do the same thing—except that at the end of the course, there will be a flagbearer and if the flag is raised, the contestants are directed to not swerve around the obstacles until the flags are lowered. If they lose control of their car or fail to obey the flag, they must reattempt the course again, up to a maximum of seven tries. Ed's peripheral vision issues prevent him from finishing this challenge, while Jason and Shelby fail in their seven attempts. Jennifer, believing that all hope was lost, manages to finish on her last attempt.

Episode 7: Road Tests

• Driving in a Straight Line: In the penultimate challenge, the drivers must drive in a straight line between two concrete barriers, and must reach 40 km/h at the end. All three contestants will be in the truck in each run. Shelby is the fastest to finish, relying on creeping slowly and then flooring to the finish. Jennifer struggles in her run, but takes advice from Shelby and completes the challenge after 27 minutes. Jason, wanting to quit again, fails to finish after 70 minutes.
• The Mega-Challenge: Drivers must combine all of the skills that they have garnered in previous challenges for this challenge. There are four parts to the mega-challenge: in the first, the drivers must start with a peel-out into an abbreviated Eye of the Needle course, before proceeding to an accident avoidance portion. After this, they approach the giant pylon, where they must do a half-donut, before parking the car and changing to a standard transmission car for the second part, which consists of an off-road drive, complete with a hill and slowing/stopping portion. After this, the contestants switch to the third car for a precision driving course, which consists of driving forwards into a garage and making a tight turn out of a garage, before proceeding to finish the third portion of the mega-challenge in reverse. Finally, back in the original car, they must accelerate their car in a straight line up to 60 km/h before stopping right in front of the giant pylon. Jennifer is fastest to finish, but Shelby and Jason show the judges that they perhaps do not deserve to graduate.
• Road Test: Drivers must navigate a course involving 35 turns through Barrie, Ontario in a mock road test, which Andrew also stresses will be done in his own truck, a 1998 Mazda B4000. Shelby and Jennifer finish with four moving violations each, but Shelby travels far off course and takes 98 minutes to do a test that normally takes an hour. Jason had by far the worst performance: his fear of fast traffic meant that, when merging into Ontario Highway 400, he ground to a complete halt. Furthermore, he misses Andrew's direction to merge off the highway at Duckworth Street and is forced to drive all the way to Midhurst, Ontario to avoid driving all the way to Sudbury, Ontario and get back on track. Jason's habit of turning off the motor at every stop is also duly noted by Andrew, as he tries to stop Jason from damaging his car's starter.

Episode 8: Why Accidents Happen: 101 Problems on Canadian Roads