Britain's Worst Driver was a British television series created and hosted by ex-Top Gear host Quentin Willson made by Mentorn airing between 2002 and 2005 on Five.

Britain's Worst Driver
Also known asBritain's Worst Celebrity Driver (2003-05)
GenreReality
Created byQuentin Willson
Duncan McAlpine
Presented byQuentin Willson
Jenni Falconer (2005)
Country of originUnited Kingdom
Original languageEnglish
No. of series2
No. of episodes14 (30 inc. specials)
Production
Running time30 minutes (inc. adverts)
Production companyMentorn
Original release
NetworkFive
Release18 October 2002 (2002-10-18) –
25 September 2005 (2005-09-25)
Related
Worst Driver

Format

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Each series, eight drivers were nominated by friends and family as being 'Britain's Worst Driver' and on the show had the opportunity to "earn back" their driving licences by performing various driving challenges, judged by a panel of industry experts including a motor accident investigator, a behavioural psychologist, a chief executive of a motor insurance group, and presenter and motoring journalist Vicki Butler-Henderson. The driver who performed the worst over the course of the series was awarded Britain's Worst Driver.

In each episode, the drivers received extra tuition and were then set driving related challenges to show what they had learnt and to gauge their improvement. The driver that the panel of judges deemed to have shown the most improvement was allowed to go home and was rewarded with a brand new car and a course of additional driving lessons.

In series 2 episode 4, Daz Gardner, nicknamed 'boy racer' was given the choice of taking £10,000 for his pink Vauxhall Nova and his baseball cap. Gardner took the £10,000 and blew the car up under the instruction of Willson.

Comedian Tim Key, nicknamed 'Timid Tim' for his seemingly cautious and slow approach to driving on the roads, was a contestant on the first series. He won the third episode (eliminated second), however sold the car that he had won, a Ford Ka, after a week. He later mentioned that he was low on money and, as an actor, played a bad driver in order to make profit from the car. [1]

Transmissions

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Regular series

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Series Start date End date Episodes
1 18 October 2002 29 November 2002 7
2 9 September 2003 21 October 2003 7

Celebrity series

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Series Start date End date Episodes
1 4 November 2003 2 December 2003 5
2 11 September 2005 25 September 2005 7

Specials

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Date Entitle
28 October 2003 Highlights
24 December 2003 The Best of...

References

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  1. ^ "Chortle Weekly Trivia File". Chortle.
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