I have young adult children who do not drive. Unlike me, who was bursting at the seams for my 16th birthday to come so I could go and get my learner’s permit.
Reasons for this IMO:
-Absurdly high costs for auto insurance for teens. Used to be lower for girls, but the Gender Equity crowd has taken care of that. It is very plausible that your teen might work a 20 hour per week minimum-wage job and end up plowing the vast majority of that into insurance premiums. So why bother?
-High gas prices and Cash For Clunkers program have left a relative dearth of affordable cars for teens who are not from well-to-do families. At $3.50 a gallon the average teen does not want to be fueling a full-sized Crown Vic left over from the police auction.
-Kids pretty much live online anymore. That’s why the malls are dying IMO. In the 80’s it was where young people went to hang out with their friends. Today they do all of their hanging out and shopping online. My kids don’t drive. but they are on a first-name basis with the UPS driver.
-The MADD crowd has gone to such extreme lengths to try and ensure that not a single teen dies ever at any time from any car-related incident, that kids have pretty much quit trying to learn before they are 18. As it is in most states you have layer upon layer of restriction...must put in 6 months and many hours with an adult before taking your test, severely restricted driving privileges afterwards, can’t ride with any other kids in the car, etc. etc. Most kids are at least 17 by the time they run that gauntlet, and then if they can’t go anywhere with their friends they figure why bother?
Then they go off to college, which is generally a campus environment where cars aren’t necessary. Pretty much they’ve graduated and realize they can’t find a job on the bus line before the thought even occurs to them.
I grew-up in the city. Never needed a car to get around. I got my license at age 18 but didn’t own a car to drive. I bought my first car at age 27.
Yep - I was one of the last of the drive at 15, full license at 16 folks. Saw the change coming. I don’t like the change one bit, but it had everything to do with boomers.
Boomers were the ones passing the laws making car ownership, gas, cash for clunkers, registration, licensing restrictions, to “protect” us. From what? I know how things were like for boomers with muscle cars, cheap gas, etc. Thanks!
I swear we are brothers on this site.
Same for me at age 16, I could not wait.
My three adult daughters drive little. Could care less about new car models, road trips, accessories. Never comes up in conversation.
As for me and my wife: we live in a small Colorado suburb and walk to everything. I've grown to hate trips to stores and work.
We sure travel alot, but it's on an airline somewhere. I drove 500 miles this past weekend; in a rental car.
So my personal observations are in line with the article.