'Top Gear' admits setting up 'learner driver' traffic jam scene
Published Mar 14 2012, 12:45 GMT | By Andrew Laughlin
© WENN
In the final episode of the current series aired on Sunday, viewers watched as presenter James May drove a Ferrari California Spider worth £5.6m, owned by BBC Radio Breakfast show host Chris Evans.
At one stage, May drove through Windsor and had to reverse the sports car on a tight road after being blocked in by three cars supposedly driven by learner drivers.
"Oh God not here, don't say you want to go backwards," he said, before wincing when the cars narrowly missed the Ferrari's paintwork as they manoeuvred past.
However, a newspaper report revealed that the drivers were not in fact learners, but actually their driving instructors, led by fully qualified Rob White.
Speaking to the Evening Standard, an instructor for the Clearway Driving School said that the sequence had been filmed in November 2009.
She added: "We were told not to bring learner drivers because of the value of the car, so it was the instructors who were really doing the driving. Their remit was to get in his way and make life awkward for him. We were there for comic effect."
In a statement, a BBC spokesperson said that the set-up was "a light-hearted take on the perils of driving one of the rarest and most valuable cars on the road".
They said that Top Gear is "not a documentary", but added that the scene in which school children ran towards the Ferrari was real.
Ofcom said that it had not received any complaints about Sunday's episode.
Top Gear is one of the BBC's most popular programme brands, but the show has regularly been accused of 'faking' scenes for the purposes of entertainment.
In 2009, bosses on the show admitted to setting up a stunt in which James May piloted a caravan adapted into an airship over Norwich airport, attracting the supposed ire of authorities.
At the time, a BBC spokesperson said: "As an entertainment programme, Top Gear prides itself on making silly films that don't pretend to represent real life. Any suggestion it deliberately misled viewers is patently ludicrous."
Watch the scene of James May driving the Ferrari in Sunday's Top Gear below:
Yes the have, which is why nobody complained, just a non story in a free sheet!
March 15th 2012 at 2:58am
If you don't like Top Gear, don't watch it. Simple! It was obviously a set up. I did though, think the school kids was also a set up and will be complaining to the BBC that it wasn't and I was misled into thinking Top Gear had manufactured the scene!
March 15th 2012 at 2:56am
Probably because they film a lot of sequences and then cut the best into the episodes. Most of what we see in a season could be filmed as much as 6 months prior, with more topical and immediate parts done during the week or on the day (star in a reasonably priced car and the news). If they are unable to use something or have run out of ideas for a show they can pull on the archive of unused sequences and use them. As in the case of this sequence it could be used when it was filmed, tomorrow, next year or two years from now and would look like it was done this week.
March 14th 2012 at 11:52pm
Now that this has been pointed out watch all the Daily Fail readers lining up to complain. Who cares if this was set up? Like James said Top Gear isn't a documentary plus I think they should be allowed to do whatever they want after the ending the show they way they did with Slash on top of the Hilux!
March 14th 2012 at 8:46pm
Who cares it was funny
March 14th 2012 at 8:29pm