Wakes don't directly drive boats. However, as a boat driver, your wake may directly effect your ability to make progress in the water. Your wake can even stop you or cause the loss of your boat and even the loss of your personal freedom.

Every boat owner knows this.

Wakes can be dangerous and disruptive, so when motoring in shallow or congested water, captains must follow strict rules about wakes. Ports and harbors have "no-wake" zones in some places, limited wake zones in others. Break the rules, and you may have committed a criminal offense. You will certainly earn the opprobrium of other boat operators.

Intending to leave port for a day of recreation, you may instead be stopped by a police cutter and fined or even jailed.

That's not physics, it's a result of society, but it is certainly the wake driving the boat.

We all live in society, of course, so our wakes do drive us sometimes.