Driving Test Smashers

Being The Hero is never easy. There are certain things heroes just cannot do without the universe conspiring to stall and/or ruin it in every way possible. One example is getting married. Another is taking a driving test.

"Driving Test" is code in Fictionland for "Scheduled Disaster." When a main character plans to take a driving test, it will be interrupted by a flash flood, a bank robbery (possibly with the escaping criminals hijacking the test vehicle), the appearance of a new door in the Portal Network, an attack by the Monster of the Week, an impending apocalypse, or some variation/combination of the above. No exceptions. Driving tests exist only to be Weirdness Magnets.

Note that this does not in any way affect the likelihood of the testee passing.

Examples of Driving Test Smashers include:

Anime and Manga

• In a filler episode of Dragonball Z, Goku and Piccolo are browbeaten by Chi Chi into talked into taking driving lessons. Naturally, while taking their road tests, they stumble on to a bank robbery/hostage situation.
• In the Tenchi Muyo! manga, Mihoshi learns to drive Earth cars; her normal results are more akin to Drives Like Crazy. Then a bank robbery, a Flashed Badge Hijacking, and a minor bit of breaking the Masquerade ...

Film

• My Best Friend Is a Vampire had the characters chased by vampire hunters during a driving test.
• While the Testee was not a main character, during The Naked Gun, Frank Drebin commandeers a driving school test vehicle and tells the teenage driver and her instructor to chase after the bad guy.
• In Live and Let Die, Bond commandeers a light plane, passing himself off as an instructor to the little old lady student, and causes mayhem taxiing around the runway evading Mr. Big's mooks.
• In one of the Olsen-Banden films Yuvonne is studying for a driver's license. A car chase ensues with her at the wheel, with the driving instructor eventually becoming frustrated at how law abidingly she drives.

Live Action TV

• The Brady Bunch: Averted, somewhat in the episode "The Driver's Seat," where Marcia gets her driver's license after enduring constant teasing by her brother Greg. A debate had ensued over which gender was the better drivers—male or female—and eventually, the two settle matters with an obstacle course-style test in a vacant parking lot. The final test: Attempting to stop a car—a brand-spanking new and astonishingly ginormous 1974 Chevrolet Caprice convertible—closest to a cone without bumping into it (and thus, knocking an egg off). Marcia passes, but Greg ... well, he made an impromptu scrambled egg! Incidentally, the egg was the only thing harmed in the making of this episode.
• Monk: A serial killer suspect shows up when Julie takes her driving test and freaks her out.
• Red Dwarf: Kryten's Starbug driving test results in the ship falling into a time hole.
• Power Rangers Time Force: During his test, Lucas happens upon the Monster of the Week (a car thief, appropriately).
  • Power Rangers RPM: Ziggy's ineptitude is demonstrated by briefly flashing back to him screwing up his driver's test.
• Home Improvement: Averted, despite that show's potential for disaster. Brad's driving test happened without a hitch offscreen; the only hiccup was that Tim's license expired and he had to retake his, too.
• Buffy's test didn't go well, either—partly because she had to fight a monster that day, partly because she just wasn't very good.

Western Animation

• Kim Possible: An AI car takes over her test vehicle to help her pass and makes her feel guilty for unintentionally cheating.
• Ben 10: Ultimate Alien: Gwen uses Ben's car for her test and the Villain of the Week attacks it, thinking Ben is driving.
• The Jetsons: Jane's car is hijacked by a bank robber while taking her test. The examiner is horrified and professes concern for "that poor creature" — not Jane, but the robber she's driving.
• The Batman: A speedster villain cuts in front of Barbara Gordon while she is taking her driver's test, prompting her to give chase. It doesn't end well.
• The second episode of Family Guy concerned Peter teaching Meg how to drive for her driving test by racing an Amish man on a horse and buggy. When Meg tried to race during her actual driving test, she failed.
• Megas XLR: Of course you know the Glorft will attack during Coop's renewal test; the twist is that strictly speaking, Coop didn't pass the renewal, he just managed to (accidentally) intimidate the tester into letting him pass. Oh yeah, and the DMV also managed to (somehow) put the Boot on Megas in that episode.
• In an episode of Sym-Bionic Titan, Lance has to get his driver's license. A drag racer he raced against the other day AND a giant monster show up, with lots of black-woman driving-instructor yelling.