For American teenagers, it’s a rite of passage to get their driver’s licenses. Rather, it used to be. Now, says a report by the New York Times, more teens are waiting to apply for a license to drive—and they’re not lining up at the DMV. Instead, they’re glued to a computer screen, or getting rides from Mom. (We hope, too, that they’re using transit and their own two feet to get around.)
The NYT reports:
In the last decade, the proportion of 16-year-olds nationwide who hold driver’s licenses has dropped from nearly half to less than one-third, according to statistics from the Federal Highway Administration.
Gone is the urgency with which sixteen-year-olds demanded their Mom let them drive the family minivan. Is it eco-savvy that’s stopping them, or simply a stoner-like case of sloth? Sadly, it seems teens are waiting to get licensed out of pure laziness rather than concern over carbon emissions (“Generation Procrastination,” perhaps, instead of “Gen Z”?).
More from the NYT:
Jaclyn Frederick, 17, of suburban Detroit, is a year past the age when she could get a Michigan license. She said she planned to apply for one eventually, but sees no rush.
“Oh, I guess I just haven’t done it yet, you know?” said Jaclyn, a senior at Ferndale High School, in Ferndale, Mich.
“I get rides and stuff, so I’m not worried about it. I’ll get around to it, maybe this summer sometime.”
Until she does, she has company. The national rate of licensed 16-year-olds dropped to 29.8 percent in 2006 from 43.8 percent in 1998, according to the Federal Highway Administration.
Rising insurance and operations costs for school-based driver’s ed programs, as well as legal restrictions (like curfews for teens, who have the highest crash rate of any group), have also kept kids off the roads.
Other teens are sitting shotgun because of safety concerns. Teresa Sheffer told the Times that she won’t allow her 17-year-old daughter, Kelsey, to drive because it’s too dangerous. To impress the life-threatening dangers of driving on her teen daughter, Sheffer hired a police officer to drive Kelsey to accident sites and explain—in gory detail—what had happened.
From the NYT:
"This is in hope of instilling an element of fear,” Ms. Sheffer said. “Cars are lethal weapons, and I want to make sure she has the experience she needs, and knows what can happen when you don’t pay attention.”
For her part, Kelsey isn’t too heartbroken over her mom’s harsh house rules.
“I’m disappointed, but if I had my license mom probably wouldn’t let me drive anyway,” Kelsey said. “But even if I did, I’d have to drive our minivan.” That prospect, she said, “is just totally not cool.”
If this trend is any indication of what’s to come, we’re glad to see that, whatever the reason, future generations are getting carectomies at such an early age. Let’s hope that the majority never makes it to the DMV, and that parallel parking becomes a thing of the past.
Photo via flickr by Scott Ableman.
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