What? You’ve never heard of the Travel Channel show called America’s Worst Driver? The show goes from city to city, pitting contestants against each other in driving challenges. The worst driver in each city gets his car — his own personal car — destroyed. Dallas is one of the eight cities on the show. So intern Ashley Oates conducted an actual journalism-style Q&A with Charlie Parsons, one of the producers of the show, to see what was what:
Behind the Wheel of America’s Worst Driver
By Ashley Oates
Q: So, you’ve got a show about the worst drivers in the country. You basically found all these awful drivers, threw them in a car, and told them to drive in stressful situations. Which cities did you visit? And how did you get people on the show?
A: We have eight different cities: San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Chicago, Dallas, Miami, Boston, and New York City. The contestants need to be nominated for some driving deficiency. Then the nominator must ride along shotgun with the person they nominated.
Q: It sounds like it’s more of a double-challenge. Both the nominated and nominator are in it together.
A: Definitely. You can’t just call-out your buddy, your sister, or your mom. You have to stay with them and try to help them through these challenges, which hopefully will bring awareness of their problems behind the wheel. Eventually you get down to the worst driver in those cities. In a two-hour finale in Los Angeles, there are all-new challenges for these competitors. Ultimately, we crowned America’s Worst Driver.
Q: From what I understand, if you want to win America’s Worst Driver, you want your car to be crashed.
A: It’s a reversed competition show. You want to be voted off. You’re voted off by being the better driver of the group. Everyone starts off with 100 points, and if you have the most points at the end, congratulations, you’re the best in the city challenge. You’re not Dallas’ worst driver, and you’re allowed to keep your car. Plus, we had another prize, which was a trip to Florida. Then it’s down to three, where we have a closed-obstacle course. We have a professional diver set a course and we eliminate one at a time, and it gets down to two left. Then, one person has their car blown up.
Q: Is this the contestant’s own car?
A: Yes. These are their own cars they brought, and there is a deep connection with these cars. One gentleman from Seattle proposed to his girlfriend just recently in that car. A contestant from Dallas had a car that was a gift from her grandfather who recently passed. There’s a big-time connection with these cars.
Q: What stunts did you have drivers in Dallas do?
A: One of the challenges was to navigate their way to E-Bar-S Ranch, just outside of Dallas. At the ranch the contestants had to don a straw cowboy hat, sit in the front seat of a big farm truck, and back up a gooseneck trailer loaded with the 1,200-pound bull, named Wobbly, into a small parking space outlined in hay bails. I was actually at the shoot of this challenge, and it was a hoot. All of the contestants took it very seriously, and had to prove they could back up a trailer in Texas.
Q: What was the other Texas-themed challenge you had them do?
A: Another great thing about Texas, and there are many of them, is high school football. Texas has a reputation of having some of the best high school football in the country, if not the best. We thought it would be great to weave in football somehow and, of course, the Dallas Cowboys. They had to navigate Fretz Park, where the parking lot had been closed off and a professional driver had set up a course. The drivers pulled up, and we very innocently told them to drive three figure-eights without hitting any cones. They also had to keep their windows rolled down. Just before they started, they were introduced to at least 25 youth football players, who came screaming out of nowhere carrying Nerf soft footballs. As the contestants began driving their figure-eights, the kids would try to throw the footballs through the open window. Many of the footballs went through. One of the funniest things is one of the teams, Tara and John, weren’t getting along so well and disagreeing. Tara, as the driver, would drive very slowly when John’s side of the car was facing the football throwers. All of the boys would drill him as he came by. She’d then pick up the pace for her side. That was her revenge. It was hysterical. The football players had a ball. How many footballs got into the car is how we determined the points.
Q: Did you speak with someone from Dallas to come up with this stunt?
A: America’s Worst Driver is an international format that’s been in more than a dozen countries and territories as a smash success in every one. So going into it, we had a Bible, if you will, of competitions and obstacle courses. That’s all well and good, but we had to do it our own way on the Travel Channel’s terms. We needed to showcase the destinations, and that’s where the football was homegrown by us and our production team. We wanted to find challenges that did showcase an element of the destination. And again, football and Texas go along pretty darn well.
Q: How did you decide on the “notoriously difficult” driving cities?
A: For the first season you want to make your point the most clearly, and you want to go to cities with big personalities themselves and have a lot of drivers. I think all these cities hit it well.
Q: Were there any real tickets issued?
A: Yes, there were a couple of times contestants were pulled over. It was all being very closely monitored by our off-duty police officers who were following right behind them.
Q: And now the most important question: what does the winner receive?
A: We thought, “How do we make sure and incentivize these folks?” The answer was if you were the worst driver in your city, we would destroy your car. We’re going to blow it up, drop a wrecking ball on it, or drive a monster truck over it. We’re going to do whatever it takes to get you off the road. At the end of every city episode, a car is destroyed. That person is the worst driver in that city. Then for the two-hour final in Los Angeles, the eight winning teams are there. Seven of the eight are going to win back a brand new car. That’s the incentive. However, the winner of America’s Worst Driver wins a bus pass and bicycle. That’s it. We truly want this to be about raising awareness for your driving, and the finale is about redemption.
