History Main / UniversalDriversLicense

** In ''LightNovel/FateZero'', Saber drives Iris' BMW and [[MyHorseIsAMotorbike a motorcycle]] with professional expertise. Berserker, as an incarnation of a knight, also gets this ability, and uses it to skyjack a fighter jet.

** In ''LightNovel/FateApocrypha'', Kairi puts Mordred (the red team's Saber) behind the wheel of a car he stole to get to a battle faster. She gets there quick, [[DrivesLikeCrazy but not without putting a few dents in the fender]].

In most action series/computer games, the player character or the hero has the ability to drive any vehicle they come across, be it a tiny Volkswagen Beetle or the biggest earth moving machine on the planet. Even if they've never seen it before, as long as the keys are in it, it's fair game for a joyride or hasty escape.

Sure, anyone with a driver's license can be expected to drive about any car or light truck out there, since the controls are more or less standardized, but beyond that realm, most earth-bound vehicles require some specialized training or familiarity with their controls to drive. Even something as common as a motorcycle is beyond the experience of many people. (What's that lever on the left handlebar? If you said 'brake' guess again, that thing is your clutch.)

Things like bulldozers, tanks, tractor trailers, ships, railroad locomotives, etc. would probably leave an inexperienced person at a loss to use if you dropped them behind the controls in an emergency situation and told them to "get us out of here!" Yet time after time, characters just take off as if they operated one for a living.

Writers seem to frequently exempt aircraft from this. The plea of "Can anyone here fly a plane?!" when the original pilots get incapacitated is almost a trope by itself. But, everything else out there that doesn't have wings is treated like the family sedan.

* Taken to extreme lengths in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI'', in which lead character Terra is basically given a 30-second lesson on how to pilot an airship by the gambler Setzer. After this, a party can be chosen, and regardless of who the lead character is in the group (and there are many possibilities), the airship can be flown with ease by anyone. This is strange, considering that a past friend of Setzer's crashed another airship and was killed, even though she was a skilled pilot as well. Particularly zany considering it's entirely possible to pilot the ship with not only a yeti, but a yeti who doesn't speak English and who can't be controlled in battle.

** In the first ep. of ''Anime/LupinIIITheWomanCalledFujikoMine'', Lupin was able to adeptly pilot ''a [[RuleOfCool rocked-propelled stolen Buddha statue]]''. Well, until Fujiko shot down its balloon-cum-float.

* Averted in ''Film/{{Airplane}}'', which is one of the [[AffectionateParody few plot elements]] that the movie [[PlayedForDrama plays for drama.]] While Ted Striker ''is'' a pilot, he only ever flew single-engine planes in [[GreatOffscreenWar The War]], not a four-engine jumbo jet like the titular airplane. Because of this, he accidentally blows out an engine because he wasn't watching the oil flow (which gets him [[WhatTheHellHero called out by ground control]]), and while he successfully lands the plane without significantly injuring the passengers, he has to be talked through it over the radio, and he ends up missing the gate by a huge distance and ripping off the landing gear.

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* ''WesternAnimation/{{Zootopia}}'': Despite her being a police officer, the ability to start and drive a subway car is apparently on Judy's already impressive list of skills, a fact which [[SarcasticDevotee Nick]] wastes no time [[LampshadeHanging lampshading]].

* ''Manga/CaseClosed'' can drive a motor boat and a helicopter. A simple answer on how he can do so is that he has learned how in Hawaii. [[DeusExMachina Conan seems to have learned everything in Hawaii.]]
** The helicopter he learned from a computer simulation at the science center. Kogoro still doesn't find it very reassuring.

* Parodied in ''Film/HotFuzz'': The opening montage states that Nicholas Angel took and excelled in several courses beyond the standard police skillset, including advanced driving (cut to Angel taking a car through a controlled skid-stop) and advanced ''cycling'' (cut to Angel taking a ''bike'' through a controlled skid-stop). [[AluminiumChristmasTrees Truer to life than you might think]]; police cycle training is basically LeParkour [[RecycledInSpace ON TWO WHEELS!]].

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* Grif from ''Machinima/RedVsBlue'' is the Red team's designated vehicle operator. He's actually a pretty skilled Warthog driver ([[DynamicEntry he did crash through a wall once, but that was on purpose]]), but he's less adept at any kind of aerial vehicle:
-->'''Sarge:''' You do know how to land this vehicle, don't you?\\
'''Grif:''' Sure. That just means "stop flying", right?\\
'''Sarge:''' ''Brace for impact!''
** The fact that Caboose from the Blue Team ''doesn't'' have one of these is a fairly important plot point in season one. [[spoiler:He sets their tank Sheila into autopilot and accidentally kills Church.]]
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* Franchise/DocSavage could operate any vehicle that existed in the 1930s: car, plane, autogyro, airship, submarine, etc.

* Sailor Uranus in the ''Anime/SailorMoon'' anime. Sure, it's not strange for a 16 year old girl to be able to drive a car, but a helicopter? This is lampshaded in the Dead Moon arc, where the Inner Senshi think of how cool she is for being able to fly a helicopter, and express a desire to learn to do the same. They drop the idea when they realize that they probably need a special license to do so, and really have no idea how to learn.

** At the moment the man-portable drone systems are controlled by Xbox controller, while the Humvee-deployed ones are controlled by laptop/[=PS3=] controller. There are also iPhone-controlled devices that the militaryis prototyping, in an effort to invoke this trope. It helps that the control scheme is dead simple and takes 5 minutes at most to be proficient. And that's just the stuff that they'll tell you about.

* ''Manga/DetectiveConan'' can drive a motor boat and a helicopter. A simple answer on how he can do so is that he has learned how in Hawaii. [[DeusExMachina Conan seems to have learned everything in Hawaii.]]

In most action series/computer games, the player character or the hero has the ability to drive any vehicle they come across, be it a little Volkswagen or the biggest earth moving machine on the planet. Even if they've never seen it before, as long as the keys are in it, it's fair game for a joyride or hasty escape.

* The ''VideoGame/FarCry'' games after the first tend towards this - if a vehicle of any variety is in the game, you can drive it. Boats, cars, gliders, mini-helicopters, etc. ''VideoGame/FarCry3'' and ''[[VideoGame/FarCry4 4]]'' at least have some restraint and prevent you from piloting actual helicopters or planes. ''3'' also {{lampshade|Hanging}}s this near the ending, when Jason tells Riley to pilot the copter to escape, saying that he'd just got his pilot's license; Riley protests that it was for ''planes''. [[spoiler:He still managed to fly themselves out of the airfield to Dr. Earnhardt's mansion, then from there to Citra's temple, without crashing along the way.]]

** Aside from being able to drive standard military vehicles like the Warthog, Master Chief and the other Spartans can also steal lots of Covenant vehicles and have a fairly easy time piloting them, though it's implied that they've actually already had a lot of training and experience doing so (especially Chief, who's already been fighting the Covenant for almost three decades by the time we play as him).

* WesternAnimation/DonaldDuck in the ''ComicBook/DisneyDucksComicUniverse'' has had so many jobs that he's a fully competent driver, sailor, and pilot...at least, that is, when the RuleOfFunny isn't in effect and causes something to set off is HairTriggerTemper. In fact, before the creation of Launchpad [=McQuack=] in the animated universe, Donald was the one that flew/sailed Scrooge to many of his adventure destinations. Individual cases tend to be justified, but combined they reach absurd heights: He was in the marine, so he can sail. He can drive as is to be expected from a middle-class adult. He's been a train enthusiast several times, so he would know a bit about how they work. It's unclear where he learned to pilot a plane.