Why Are Teens Growing Disinterested in Automobiles?

When I was an adolescent, it was made clear to me that the first step toward adulthood was getting my driver’s license. Even without an automobile, it provided unimaginable freedoms and brought me closer to my goal of doing a burnout in the high school parking lot. That dream was ultimately achieved, leaving me to rethink roadway safety as my first car was loaded onto a flatbed while the scent of tire smoke and bleach clung to my clothing.

Fortunately, hitching a ride home was easy, as most of my friends had also acquired licenses and cars of their own. But that’s probably not going to be the case for teens coming of driving age in these modern times.

According to the Federal Highway Administration, the percentage of American teenagers bothering to get their licenses has effectively plateaued at a low point. Nearly 48 percent of 16-year-olds in this country could legally drive in 1984; that number settled to just 25.6 percent in 2018. The reasons are more complicated than just the younger generation’s snubbing of the automobile.

A Bloomberg report recently examined the data-faulted restrictions imposed in the 1990s. These included raising the number of “practice hours” those under 18 have to endure (with a guardian) before getting the important slip of paper, minimizing the number of passengers they can carry once they have a license, and rules against driving late at night. Despite walking back teenage freedom to some degree, it’s broadly believed these initiatives helped improve roadway safety by not throwing young drivers into the pool without supervision.

But creating more hoops for teens to jump through may also have discouraged them from rushing out to get their license.

While some of this has simply shifted the age brackets for when younger people decide to pick up their driving certification, trending older, Bloomberg believes it had broader implications on society as a whole:

Still, there are ample indications that the acquisition of driver’s licenses isn’t only being delayed. Licensed drivers’ share of the population has continued to rise as the population ages, but according to transportation researcher Michael Sivak — who has done more than anyone to raise awareness of this shift — members of every age cohort under 45 were less likely to have a license in 2018 than in 1983. Among those ages 25 to 29, 85.7 percent had licenses in 2018, down from 95.6 percent in 1983. Also, Americans in their 30s and 40s used to be much more likely to have licenses than those in their 60s. Now they’re less likely to have them.

Pretty much every group under the age of 50 has seen a smaller percentage of drivers since the 1980s. In 1983, 94.9 percent of adults between 35 and 39 held a valid license. That number dropped to 90.9 percent for 2018. For Americans aged 20 to 24, the figures went from 91.8 to 80.1 percent over the same period.

Urbanization undoubtedly plays a role here. More people live in cities than ever before, and a hefty chunk of them rely on public transportation or ride sharing. However, your author has also convinced himself that the defunding of driver’s education programs has to be similarly relevant. Decades ago, you could practically guarantee the local high school offered some form of driver’s ed.

Unfortunately, liability concerns and a growing focus on college admissions requirements have discouraged many schools from bothering. As a result, vehicular training courses suffered the same fate as shop class. Some teens without parents willing to pay for their education elsewhere will certainly scrounge up the cash for themselves, but there will also be a contingent you’ll have to catch young if you’re going to catch them at all.

[Image: RomanR/Shutterstock]