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This is when someone who is inexperienced in driving cars must, for reasons of the plot, drive a car or boat or plane or... flying alien tank. Often Played for Laughs, and/or with someone in the backseat yelling "Slow down!" or "Eyes on the road!" Someone might also ask the character "Are you sure you can drive this thing?". The ride may or may not end with a car crash (which certainly answers that question).
A subtrope of Drives Like Crazy, this differs in that erratic driving is not a habit (or, usually, enjoyable) for the character.
Examples of Are You Sure You Can Drive This Thing? include:
- Delilah uses this phrase when Julius tries to drive a subway train in Delilah and Julius. When the tunnel starts to get flooded, she Verbal Backspaces and asks "Are you sure you can surf this thing?"
- On Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Buffy wants to drive, even though she failed her driving test. When the adults start behaving like teenagers Joyce lets her drive, and Buffy is far more interested in this than the fact the adults are acting wonky. We quickly find out that there was a good reason she wasn't allowed to drive before, as Snyder lampshades.
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"Woooh, Summers, you drive like a SPAZZ!!!!!!" |
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- In Trinity Blood, Sister Esther tries to drive, and almost gives Abel a heart attack. It results in Radu finding them.
- Subverted in a Simpsons episode, where Homer is dangling in a gorge and Marge asks Bart to drive the car, to pull Homer up using a rope attached to the bumper; Bart at first acts nervous about it, but then reveals he has his own set of keys.
- Sneakers has a scene where Whistler has to drive a truck. Whistler is blind, and has to receive instructions via walkie-talkie. Hilarity Ensues.
- Jerry Reed (Snowman) asks Burt Reynolds (The Bandit) in Smokey and the Bandit if he can drive a forklift. "I can drive any forkin' thing around." Hilarity Ensues as we see that he can't.
- In the Dirty Harry film Magnum Force, Harry pretends to be an airline pilot in order to thwart a hijacking. After seeing his incompetence as a pilot, the co-pilot says to Harry, "Excuse me, Captain, but can you fly?" Harry then says, "Nope. Not a bit," and disables the first hijacker who was in the cockpit.
- In Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Dr. Jones Sr. and Jr. find themselves trying to escape from Nazis in a plane Indiana is piloting. Indiana has never successfully landed a plane in his life.
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Jones Sr: Are you sure you can fly this thing? |
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- Truth In Film. Driving a plane around a mostly empty sky is really easy. Landing often ain't.
- In Atlantis: The Lost Empire, Milo is asked if he knows how to drive a truck. "Sure I can drive a truck. You have the break and the clutch and this lever... thing... All right, it was the bumper cars at Coney Island, but it's the same basic principle." Turns out it's not, and he has to be towed behind the rest of the way.
- In the Star Trek: The Original Series episode "A Piece of the Action", 23rd-century Captain Kirk drives a 1920s-era car on the gangster planet, guided only by fuzzy memories of the history of automobiles. He always successfully arrives at his destination, but Spock expresses strong displeasure with his driving skills.
- In Persona 2, Tatsuya is perfectly capable of driving Mini-Mecha, Zeppelins, and submarines. All before having a normal driver's license.
- An alternative version in Independence Day with David Asking Steven about flying the Alien Craft.
- David: You really think you can fly that thing?
- Steven: You really think you can do all that bullshit you just said?