I saw the article from the Financial Times linked on Drudge today on how those 14-34 are turning away from driving:
Figures from the Federal Highway Administration show the share of 14 to 34-year-olds without a driver’s licence rose to 26 per cent in 2010, from 21 per cent a decade earlier, according to a study by the Frontier Group and the US PIRG Education Fund released this month. (Some US states allow 14-year-olds to get a learner’s permit to drive.) Another study from the University of Michigan showed that people under 30 accounted for 22 per cent of all licensed drivers, down from a third in 1983, with the steepest declines among teenagers.
The article gave several reasons for the low driving rate among teens, including the economy and social media: people don’t meet face-to-face anymore and don’t need cars as much. It’s hard for me to believe that teens and younger people don’t want to drive. I wonder how much of it is the difficulty and regulations of getting a license that are so much higher today and how much is that younger people are used to being hauled around and taken care of by parents or how much is just fear and antagonism towards cars that the government and environmentalists put out? I can’t believe how few people know how to even drive a stick shift. Shouldn’t people learn these skills or are they obsolete?
Driving used to mean freedom — now it doesn’t. Is that a good thing? I don’t think so.
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