Posted on 07/01/2012 1:58:15 PM PDT by nascarnation
Bigger than the post-World War Two baby-boom generation but without the middle-class expansion that drove the earlier group's consumer habits, Generation Y includes an increasing number of people for whom driving is less an American rite of passage than an unnecessary chore.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
“I compare my childhood in the ‘50’s with that of today. It brings a tear to my eye, but worse, there’s no way to communicate it to the youth of today. It is a good time to be old.”
It really seemed like a golden age to have been a kid was from the 50s to 9-11.
I feel really bad that the world just stopped allowing them to be children. Selfish adults robbing kids of needed innocence.
Effete men out the wazoo
Why drive.....whenever i see them their mommy...er girlfriend is driving
In the 1960s 25.00/ mo could get you behind a wheel......today it’s close to 250/mo for insurance for a 16 year old guy.
The ONLY thing these sloppy kids want is their smart phones and their laptops.....NOTHING else.
I’m 65 and no one my age that I knew played GAMES and did childish things.....they went to work, got married, had children, and yes they ALL got DL’s at 16.
Freedom......my first bike when I was 7 was FREEDOM!!! Not sure the kids today, even the BOYS, get bikes because of the parents FEAR that something will happen to them if they aren’t with their kids at all times. VERY SAD.....I could go all over the country roads by myself and not have fear.
And gas was 18-25 cents a gallon, and cigarettes were 25 ents a pack and they are now $8.00!!! Insurance is NOT unaffordable if the kid works.
True...the nanny state and all these lawyers out to sue make it much more difficult for a youngster to drive and be mobile than 40 years ago. Plus smaller families make the parents reluctant to let their hothouse princes and princesses go drive a dangerous lethal vehicle.
Insurance rates too for young drivers are higher
You wrote:
“Mobility was the great advantage of the American workforce over everyone else. Now, not so much.”
Yeah, but with iPhones and the new google glasses they won’t care about mobility. Going somewhere will just become a virtual ride. They won’t actually have to travel.
You mean they weren’t looking to be on their parents’ health insurance until age 30?
BLS says the unemployment rate for teenagers is 25% if you believe that. Plus many states have huge restrictions on who can be in a teenager's car. There is no way for a teens to pool resources if there are no other teens or maybe one allowed in the car without adult supervision...
“those six-cylinder Stangs get great gas mileage too - 30 mpg. Wouldn’t that make them even MORE attractive to drive?”
My 40 Ford coupe with an Olds engine that went 130 in the quarter and got 5 miles per gallon in 1953 would still be my choice today over your modern day Mustang!
Do the cops really want the hassle particularly if the person is violating no traffic laws?
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No registration or plate is violating traffic laws.
They would come down on him hard because it would be an example to the herd.
in 1952 when I got insurance on my 40 coupe it cost me $600/year which would be at least $6,000/year in todays dollars!
I had to go on assigned risk because my dad wouldn’t let me be on their policy because of the liability tgo the business!
It cost a hell of a lot back then for a car also.
I went to work at 14 plastering so I could have a richous street racer sitting at the curb when I turned 16.
By the time it was completed I had almost $2,000 in it which would have bought a new Cadilac with a lot of money left over!
I thought that at first, then I recognized the logic of the plate that he did put on his truck. He was essentially advertising that he was armed. I don’t necessarily agree with what he was doing but he seemed to be going about his business unmolested.
Yes, I suppose we live in different worlds from the youth of today. My first car at age 18 was a 1949 Oldsmobile and I loved to roar down the highway in it (that car with its straight-8 engine could really move). I loved the freedom of the road and feel sorry for those who are growing up with the lack of that experience.
I cannot relate to today’s youth at all, for two reasons: 1) I have no childen, for which I give heart-felt thanks every day, and 2) I have no friends that have children, and that’s not a disappointment, either.
Those highways you drive on sound like the Highways from Hell and I can understand your daughter’s reluctance to drive on them. I much prefer my rural two-laners.
Seemed like it whetted my appetite for more.
When I got to making real money I switched to racing on the track.
I thought that at first, then I recognized the logic of the plate that he did put on his truck. He was essentially advertising that he was armed. I don’t necessarily agree with what he was doing but he seemed to be going about his business unmolested.
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He will be stopped when it is time for them to stop him. Might be a shootout.
Keep your ears peeled.
“Those highways you drive on sound like the Highways from Hell and I can understand your daughter’s reluctance to drive on them. I much prefer my rural two-laners.”
They are. I live in Las Vegas- tourists, drunks and cabbies...I miss rural life. I almost never go out in the evening and am loath to go out during the day unless I absolutely have to. The upside is I pretty much have my own little paradise here so so I don’t care so much about leaving it. In a month or so when it’s in the budget, my daughter is getting the, “tough...deal with it” mandate of driver’s ed. I trust her reaction time over my 53 year old reaction time. If she can beat all her video games she can manage the ridiculous traffic.
Actually, what’s worse are the crappy young (generally female) drivers that don’t drive enough to ever get any skill at it (one that I know now practices high speed driving on side streets to get up enough courage to drive on the freeway). It would be great if they stuck to their I-Phones...AT HOME.
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