Once upon a time, getting your driver’s license was a cherished right of passage, a ticket to freedom few self-respecting teens would pass up for very long.
That was certainly the case with me. Growing up in a small town in Iowa, I couldn’t wait to get my license. I got my learner’s permit the day I turned 14. And I got my license the day I turned 16. I can still remember my mom taking a picture of me as I rolled down the driveway solo for the very first time. I can clearly recall the sense of exhilaration and freedom that came from having my driver’s license. And, of course, my friends and I spent countless hours cruising the mile-and-a-quarter “drag” between the car wash and the library.
Today’s teens, in contrast, seem considerably less infatuated with getting their driver’s licenses. And it’s an interesting case study in cultural change to examine some of the reasons why.
Recent studies have chronicled the falling percentages of teens who are getting their licenses of late. In 2008, the Federal Highway Administration reported that the percentage of 16-year-olds with licenses had fallen from 43.8% in 1998 to 29.8% in 2008. Another study from the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute reported similar numbers. In 1983, 46% of 16-year-olds were driving. Fast-forward to 2008, and only 31% were. That study reported significant drops in licensure among 17- and 18-year-olds as well.
Experts have offered several explanations for this trend. The most obvious one is economic: rising gasoline and insurance costs paired with fewer schools offering free driver’s education means fewer kids have the means to be on the road.
Interestingly, though, that’s not the only factor that’s at work here. Technological change and shifting values are apparently involved as well.
With the advent of so many digital devices keeping kids in touch 24/7, many of them feel less need to connect face to face—and therefore less need for a vehicle to make that happen. Michael Sivak, coauthor of the University of Michigan study, told the Chicago Sun-Times, “Virtual contact through electronic means reduces the need for actual contact.”
Sheryl Connelly, a marketing and consumer trend manager at Ford Motor Company, concurs. In an interview with car website edmunds.com, she said, “Boomers came of age when the car was the quintessential product of adulthood. In the ’50s, there wasn’t anything else competing for their attention. [But] for Millennials … the car doesn’t resonate with them as it did before. … Now electronics are competing for their resources, and with mobile technology, Millennials can transcend time and place.”
Connelly also notes that the entire conception of what ownership means is in flux for contemporary youth. “Millennials have a more fluid concept of ownership. Do they ‘own’ the fonts in their computer? Sites like Pandora stream music, but do they ‘own’ the music? There used to be a stigma to renting that doesn’t exist for Millennials, as long as they get access. It’s more about access than pride of ownership.”
That said, there may be one other countervailing value keeping some kids from getting licenses: The fact that their tastes and preferences are a lot more luxurious than teens in previous generations. Whereas I was content to roll down the driveway (and manually roll down the windows) in my dented-and-dilapidated 1979 Mercury Capri, many young folks today have their sights set on something decidedly more up-market—and something they can’t afford right away.
Alexander Edwards, president of the market research firm Strategic Vision, told edmunds.com, “Millennials are much more critical of products. For instance, they demand a lot of comfort because they grew up in minivans. And they don’t just want any car. They want the car they want. Their attitude is often, ‘I don’t need to get one since the one I really want I can’t get.’ In other words, many would rather hold out for an expensive new Audi later rather than drive around in an affordable, rattletrap old Chevrolet Cavalier they can get right now.”
Underscoring that observation, 19-year-old Brannan Mason, a sophomore at the University of San Diego, says, “When I get my career going good, I’ve already got my Porsche 911 Turbo S all spec’d out.”
Comfort. Connection. Cost.
This confluence of influences and changing values, it seems, has colluded to keep more and more young drivers off the roads compared to those of us car-loving, Capri-driving geezers who came of age way back in the analog age of the 20th century.
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