Licenses Take a Back Seat

[bemildred]

The call of the open road just ain't what it used to be.

Like most of her classmates at Laguna Hills High School, Kayte Greenfelder took driver's education at 16. She sat through the grainy old death-on-the-asphalt movies, memorized the handouts on rights-of-way and traffic signals, even went to the Department of Motor Vehicles and got a learner's permit.

Somehow, though, she never got around to actually getting her license. "I guess I was lazy — plus, I couldn't afford the insurance, and standing in line at the DMV just felt like a big hassle," said Greenfelder, who at 19 still isn't driving.

---

But quietly, while the adults weren't looking, kids have stopped driving at 16 the way they used to. In a shift that has overtaken the culture virtually without notice, a confluence of forces has redefined the concept of "driving age."

Poorer young people, tougher licensing laws, shifting teen attitudes, protective baby boom parents, soaring auto insurance premiums — these and other factors appear to have conspired to keep not just most 16-year-olds, but more teens of all ages from driving.

LA Times

[mainegreen]

1. not neccessarily a bad thing

Especially if I think back to when I was a teen. Miracle I survived really.

[el_gato]

2. interesting phenomena and I've seen it first hand

[arcane1]

3. it's keeping 37-year-olds from driving too

getting rid of the car, and cable tv, did wonders for me


of course it helps to live somewhere with decent public trans... I could have NEVER survived in VA without a car, unless I worked in a supermarket and lived in the stock-room

[shanti]

4. very interesting

although my 14 yr old is very very eager to drive, i'm not so eager for him to do so! maybe my head-on collision at age 18 has something to do with it! :eyes: inexperience kills.

[Xithras]

5. My wife didn't start driving until she was 21

That was five years ago. To her it simply wasn't an issue...she took public transportation on most of her trips, and asked me for rides to places that the busses didn't reach.

She didn't get her own license until I took a job with a long commute and wasn't available to ferry her around anymore.

[Xithras]

6. Addendum, I just realized...

There are seven people between 15 and 21 in our extended family (cousins, nephews, etc), and only one of them drives, so I think the article is pretty spot on about this (though I'd never thought about it before).

The big difference, I think, is money. When I was 16 (and I'm only 30 now) the public school districts provided the classroom drivers training for free, and the behind-the-wheel training for $10 per student. Today none offer the behind the wheel training (you have to pay big bucks for a private trainer), and a dwindling number of them offer the classroom training. When I was 16, car insurance wasn't required by law. When I was 16, smog tests were $7 and were so easy that nobody failed them. When I was 16, gas cost .89 cents a gallon.

Today's kids have to pay huge amounts of money for drivers training, start off with better cars than we did (to pass emissions), pay for insurance, and deal with gas prices we'd never dreamt of. Is it any wonder that less of them drive?