Driver education first took shape in the United Kingdom back in 1909, and a quarter‑century later the United States opened its inaugural high‑school driver’s ed class. The program promised hands‑on training and essential driving skills for fledgling motorists.

Since those early days, the industry has been riddled with stories of rogue instructors, hysterical pupils, and outright road‑rage incidents that would make anyone’s palms sweat. Below we count down the top 10 driver nightmares that proved just how wild a lesson can become.

Top 10 Driver Nightmares Unveiled

10 Traffic Delays And Shattered Elbows

Instructors must juggle reckless teens and irate motorists with a hefty dose of patience. For 64‑year‑old Chris Barnett, however, his pleas for calm fell on deaf ears as chaos unfolded on a busy Braintree, Essex road in 2015.

During a first‑time drive, Barnett’s student grew flustered at an intersection, creating a brief traffic snag. Within twenty seconds, two angry men in a Range Rover pulled up beside them, hurling a barrage of expletives.

Although Barnett repeatedly warned the duo that their encounter was being recorded, one driver stormed out of his vehicle and lunged toward the open passenger window, while his companion eagerly joined the fray.

Attempting to calm matters, Barnett swung the car door open—only to have it slammed shut hard onto his arm. The aggressors fled as quickly as they had arrived, leaving Barnett with what he calls “the worst road‑rage incident … in his career,” and a broken elbow as his only souvenir.

9 French Inhale

Choosing to dull one’s senses before a driving exam is a reckless gamble, especially when the guide entrusted with a teen’s safety encourages it. In 2015, Eric Robertson, owner of Drive Tech in Albuquerque, suggested his tense 15‑year‑old pupil drive to his home so they could smoke marijuana together.

When the teenager declined, Robertson escalated his attempt at persuasion by pulling the girl behind a building, asking if she had ever “French inhaled.” He then lit a joint, exhaled the smoke directly into her mouth, and pressed a kiss to her cheek.

The escapade ended abruptly when police arrested Robertson, charging him with child abuse and supplying a minor with drugs. Ironically, the judge sent him to a driver’s education class of his own, highlighting the paradox of a traffic‑law violator running a school.

Parents’ frustration grew when Drive Tech shut its doors without refunds or notice. One angry parent recalled paying $350, only to find the school vanished, leaving them clueless about whom to contact for help.

8 History Of Wrongdoings

In 2011, Mercer County, Iowa, dismissed driver’s‑ed teacher Dan Correll after a string of complaints about his bizarre conduct. Between 2009 and 2011, Correll was cited repeatedly for falling asleep both in the classroom and behind the wheel, and for making inappropriate comments toward female staff and students.

Five years later, the Iowa Department of Transportation faced a scandal involving 62‑year‑old examiner John Alexander, who, during a test, instructed a 49‑year‑old woman to pull into a parking lot, then forced her to view explicit photos and a masturbation video on his phone.

7 Failure At Its Finest

Driving exams are already nerve‑wracking, but none expected a student’s frustration to morph into a murderous sprint. In 2013, a 21‑year‑old woman failed her test after hitting a cone at the Mayfield Heights, Ohio BMV site, then blamed her instructor for the failure.

After a brief exchange, the instructor stepped out of the vehicle. The enraged student floored the accelerator, barreling straight toward her teacher. The instructor leapt aside just in time, narrowly avoiding a collision that could have turned the windshield into a splatter of glass.

6 Night Beatdown

During his final lesson in 2016, 16‑year‑old Dominic Elliott sensed a vehicle tailing him. Instructor Robert Ross, feeling uneasy, ordered a U‑turn at a traffic light. To their shock, the trailing car turned out to be a police patrol.

Six deputies swarmed the scene with weapons drawn. Despite Ross’s repeated explanations that Elliott was a student driver, officers handcuffed the teenager and inflicted a serious arm injury. Only after realizing Elliott had no warrants did they release him.

Elliott’s parents sued Drive America, alleging the school’s faulty license plate made the car appear stolen, prompting the police response. The teen eventually recovered, returned to the road, and earned his license a year later.

5 And Another For The Road

In 2017, staff at Joliet Central High discovered instructor Nestor M. Nowak slumped over the wheel outside the main entrance, initially presumed to have suffered a stroke. Ambulance crews arrived, only to learn Nowak’s blood alcohol content was more than three times the legal limit.

Court documents revealed Nowak’s 13 prior traffic violations, including a DUI three years earlier. That same year, a German instructor was arrested after driving while so intoxicated he failed to brake, crashing a teen’s vehicle into a house. Meanwhile, a Cape Town instructor logged a blood‑alcohol level twelve times over the limit, causing a crash that sent a 17‑year‑old into a residential structure.

4 Mommy Dearest

In 2016, Ilyse Levine‑Kanji drove her 18‑year‑old son 171 kilometers to his driver’s exam, only to be told the instructor deemed the test “unsafe” and cancelled it on the spot. The instructor refused to reconsider, prompting Levine‑Kanji into a violent frenzy.

She grabbed a ballpoint pen and attempted to stab the instructor, then, when restrained, resorted to biting his forearm, leaving several lacerations. After the chaotic episode, she and her son fled the site.

Shortly afterward, state troopers stopped them on the Mass Pike and arrested Levine‑Kanji for assault with a dangerous weapon. This was not her first brush with the law; in 2013 she was placed on probation for punching a woman at a children’s pool party.

3 Doughnut Run

Late 2016 found Malisa L. Stocker, a North Marion High driver‑ed employee in Florida, crashing the school vehicle during a routine Dunkin’ Donuts run. In a desperate cover‑up, she falsified paperwork and tried to have the wreck repaired at the district’s bus garage.

She concocted a story that a student had crashed into a tree, then sneaked onto campus at night to create fake tire tracks and affix tree bark to the car. When the ruse began to crumble, Stocker tried to coerce a student into signing a false confession.

The situation worsened when she realized the vehicle had struck a senior citizen’s car. She discouraged the elderly man from filing a report and withheld insurance details. Superintendent Heidi Maier condemned the actions, calling for Stocker’s immediate dismissal.

2 Love Is In The Air

In Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana, a 45‑year‑old female driving instructor, Angel F. Owens, became obsessively fixated on a 15‑year‑old student, bombarding her with 650 phone calls and over 12,000 sexually charged texts between February and July 2016.

Owens handed the teen an iPhone on the condition it stay hidden from her parents. When the girl refused, Owens threatened to “make the victim’s family disappear.” She later presented the teen with an engraved charm bracelet and demanded the girl call her “momma,” lashing out if the demand wasn’t met.

After the student finally told Owens to leave her alone, the instructor escalated by repeatedly driving by the girl’s home and sending messages that she would kill herself. Detectives intervened, Owens confessed to stalking, and was arrested on charges of indecent behavior with a juvenile and stalking, with bond set at $140,000.

1 Unanswered Questions

In 2014, a routine lesson in Waterville, Ohio turned fatal when 16‑year‑old Joseph Franks ignored a stop sign, and his 48‑year‑old instructor Thomas Smith failed to intervene. Their vehicle slammed into a minivan, flipping end‑over‑end onto a nearby yard.

The minivan driver, 48‑year‑old Kathleen Woods, escaped with non‑life‑threatening injuries, but both Franks and Smith were pronounced dead at the scene.

Investigators uncovered that Smith had a recent history of traffic infractions, including a collision just four days earlier when his personal car was struck by a pickup after he failed to yield at a stop sign.

Adam is just a hubcap trying to hold on in the fast lane.

You don’t have to be bitten by a radioactive spider, have super speed or strength, or have the ability to fly in order to be a hero. Being a hero simply means putting the needs of others before your own and relying on your own inner strength and courage, even in the face of danger or uncertainty.

Being a “hero” can span a variety of situations from paying for a person’s groceries when they come up short at the register, helping a new mother who’s struggling, granting a last wish to someone with a terminal illness, or just leaving a larger-than-usual tip for an employee in the service industry.

The ten pizza delivery drivers on this list had no idea the circumstances they were about to encounter as they made seemingly normal deliveries. However, rather than ignoring the situation or assuming they could not help, they heard the calls of those in need and chose to answer, ultimately saving the day and in some cases, the lives of their customers.

Related: 10 Times A Homeless Person Was A Hero (For Real)

10 Anson Lemmer

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

Nineteen-year-old Anson Lemmer, a pizza delivery driver for Uncle Pizza in Denver, Colorado, headed out for his last delivery on June 15, 2015. However, when a standard pizza delivery quickly became a medical emergency, Lemmer sprang into action.

When Lemmer arrived at his destination, he saw a man on the ground turning blue and in need of help. While there were other bystanders at the residence, they did not know CPR. However, Lemmer had received CPR training as a pre-teen and put that training to good use until first responders could arrive. By that time, the unnamed man was in stable condition and transported to the hospital, where he was later released. While Lemmer doesn’t consider himself a “hero,” he was honored by The American Red Cross on July 17, 2015, and presented with the Lifesaver Award.^[1]

9 Sofia Furtado

Caryn Sullivan of West Island Fairhaven, Massachusetts, placed a pizza order on February 11, 2022, but because her husband was asleep, she decided to wait outside her home for the delivery. Unfortunately, while waiting, Sullivan’s knee gave out, causing her to fall down a set of stairs and injure her head on the way down.

When Sophia Furtdao, the DoorDash delivery driver, arrived and saw Sullivan bleeding and unresponsive, she immediately went inside to notify Sullivan’s husband and call 911. Thankfully, Furtado also had previous EMT training, so she wasn’t afraid to assist and could follow the dispatcher’s instructions until medics arrived at the home.

While Sullivan underwent emergency surgery and months of recovery, doctors stated that had it not been for Furtado arriving when she did and assisting dispatchers, Sullivan would not have made it. The Fairhaven Police Department honored Furtado with a lifesaving award, and DoorDash also granted her a $1,000 educational grant to help her pursue her dreams of becoming an EMT.^[2]

8 Alou Bathily

In March 2019, twenty-one-year-old Alou Bathily, a native of West Africa, had only been a resident of the United States for two months. However, on the evening of March 29, not only was Bathily on a mission to serve pizza to a New York customer, but he also served up some much-needed justice.

While en route to a delivery, Bathily witnessed a police chase. Manhattan police were in pursuit of a suspect who previously had been harassing a woman and stole her headphones. When the suspect, 17-year-old Lovell Ambrister, took off on foot, Bathily refused to let him get away and chased after the young man on his bicycle. Bathily was able to tackle him to the ground and then stated he “sat on him for good measure” until the police arrived.

On April 23, 2019, the New York Police Department presented Bathily with an award for being a “local neighborhood superhero.” Not only was Bathily able to assist police in apprehending the suspect and saving the day, but he was also able to deliver the customer’s pizza in well under 30 minutes.^[3]

7 Nicholas Bostic

When 25-year-old pizza delivery driver Nicholas Bostic of Lafayette, Indiana, noticed a house engulfed in flames on the evening of July 11, 2022, he jumped into action without any second thoughts or hesitation. Thankfully, Bostic was able to enter the residence through an unlocked back door, where he began calling out to anyone who might have been inside.

Bostic found four children upstairs; however, once he had gotten them to safety, he was told a six-year-old girl was still inside the home. He ran back into the flames and was able to locate the child. Unfortunately, due to the intense amount of smoke, Bostic couldn’t find his way back out, so he took the little girl and jumped out of the second-story window, landing on his side to ensure she wasn’t injured during the escape.

Four of the children Bostic rescued lived in the home; one was a friend staying the night. The parents of the four children, David and Tiera Barrett, had gone out for a date night, and the fire later was deemed to have started due to a bucket of ashes on the porch that had not been fully extinguished.

Bostic suffered from severe smoke inhalation, deep cuts on his arms, and blisters on his hands but was released from the hospital a few days later. He was simply happy to know all of the children were okay. Needless to say, the Barretts are incredibly grateful for Bostic’s quick thinking and heroic actions, and they now consider him family.^[4]

6 Gilad Zargari

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

Seventeen-year-old Gilad Zargari is a pizza delivery driver in Be’er Sheeva, Israel. However, when he arrived to make a delivery on February 5, 2022, he was met by a young father in desperate need of help.

The father, Ran, told Zargari that his daughter was suffering from a febrile convulsion, a seizure that is brought on when a child’s temperature gets too high. The family was waiting for an ambulance to arrive. Thankfully, aside from delivering pizzas, Zargari was also a Magen David Adom (MDA) volunteer, which provides training in first-aid and emergency care.

Zargari immediately began doing what he had been trained to do. He called for a MICU, a mobile intensive care unit ambulance specifically equipped to care for those requiring immediate, high-level treatment, and wrapped the baby in a damp towel to bring her temperature down. Thanks to Zargari’s actions, the little girl had been stabilized by the time medics arrived. The little girl’s parents were extremely grateful that Zargari was the one who arrived on the scene and when he did, saying, “We received a pizza with a life-saving side order.”^[5]

5 Oregon Domino’s

Forty-eight-year-old Kirk Alexander of Salem, Oregon, had been a loyal Domino’s customer for over 10 years, ordering almost every single day. However, never could he have imagined that his love for pizza would ultimately save his life.

When 11 days had passed without a single incoming order from Alexander, general manager Sarah Fuller knew something had to be wrong and sent driver Tracey Hamblen to Alexander’s home to check on him. Hamblen had become well acquainted with Alexander and knew of his medical conditions. However, when Hamblen arrived, the lights and TV were on, but he was unable to get Alexander to answer the door or his phone.

Hamblen returned to the Domino’s store, where he and Fuller then called 911. First responders arrived and were able to rescue Alexander, who was believed to have had a stroke, although no specific details were released regarding his medical condition. However, the care of the Domino’s staff didn’t end after Alexander was transported to the hospital. They continued to make visits to check on him during his recovery.^[6]

4 Brad Lane

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

When pizza delivery driver Brad Lane received a phone call at Toppers Pizza in Clifton, Ohio, at 3:00 am on March 28, 2011, for a large order, something didn’t quite seem right. So rather than simply hanging up after the customer had finished his order, Lane continued to quietly listen to the man on the other end of the line. That’s when he overheard the plan to rob him during the delivery.

Lane and his manager then called 911. Between the efforts of 911 dispatchers and local police, they were able to set up a sting operation. They sent an undercover officer dressed as a pizza delivery man in Lane’s place. The criminals went through with their plan and attempted to grab the pizzas and flee, but the police already had the area surrounded and were waiting for them. Police arrested 19-year-old Kevon Whitfield and another 14-year-old who had also tried to rob a Pizza Hut the previous evening.^[7]

3 Karen Vogt

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

Karen Vogt was a pizza delivery driver for Mezzaluna Pizzeria in Ormond Beach, Florida, and also a favorite among its customers. However, on August 4, 2016, when Vogt attempted to deliver an order to an elderly customer who frequently ordered, and there was no answer at the door or by phone, she knew something was amiss.

After Vogt heard what she believed was a crash, she was determined to check on the customer and found a way to access the home through a door next to the garage. That’s when she saw that the customer had fallen trying to answer the door and was unable to get up. Vogt then alerted the pizzeria, who called for an ambulance while she waited with the elderly woman.

While the customer was able to come back home the next day, Vogt still felt bad that she never got to enjoy her pizza, so she paid for another one and delivered it to the woman personally.^[8]

2 Kaylene White

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

When a pizza order was made incorrectly on the evening of August 31, 2016, Domino’s driver Kaylene White was sent to deliver the corrected order to the Northside Senior Apartments in Angleton, Texas. However, little did she know that she was meant to be the one making the delivery that night.

Martha Norman, a resident at the complex, has a skin condition that often caused her to scratch herself, sometimes leading to bleeding. So when she called her daughter, Cheryl Stahl, saying she was bleeding, Stahl came to the complex to assess the situation. However, when she arrived, she saw her mother as well as the apartment covered in blood. After Norman was unable to explain what happened, Stahl panicked and was so hysterical she could not unlock her phone to call for assistance. That’s when she began screaming for help, and thankfully, White came running.

White had previous experience working in the medical field and immediately took charge of the situation by grabbing towels to form a tourniquet around Norman’s legs to stop the bleeding. When paramedics arrived on the scene, they confirmed that had it not been for White’s actions, Norman may have had a much different outcome.

Additionally, given her heroic efforts, one of the paramedics on call, Jason Albert, later went into the Domino’s store to inform White’s manager what had happened to ensure she did not face any consequences for returning late from the delivery. While White doesn’t consider herself a hero, both Norman and Stahl say that they will never forget her, and they consider her a “lifelong friend.”^[9]

1 Joey Grundl

Dean Hoffman forced his way into his ex-girlfriend’s home on the afternoon of September 27, 2018, where he proceeded to physically assault and hogtie her, holding her against her will. The woman naturally assumed she was going to die by Hoffman’s hand. However, Hoffman’s sinister plans were foiled when he made the mistake of ordering a pizza, which would be delivered by a very observant driver.

When Domino’s driver Joey Grundl arrived with the delivery order, the woman alerted Grundl to her black eye and mouthed the words “help me” and “call police.” Grundl kept his composure to not alert Hoffman that he knew something was wrong, and once he was back in his car, he called 911. Hoffman was arrested and charged with suspicion of kidnapping, false imprisonment, strangulation and suffocation, felony intimidation of a victim, and burglary.

Grundl was honored by Domino’s CEO and presented with the “Above and Beyond the Call of Duty” award. Additionally, when Grundl was spotted wearing a Taylor Swift sweatshirt during an interview, word spread to the pop star, and Swift invited him to meet her backstage after her concert in Arlington, Texas.^[10]