What's Driving Today's Teens

I ran on the track team in high school.  I was half miler.  I was not particularly good but I wanted to go out for at least one sport.  Some of my buddies were on the team and two of them also ran the half mile.  I did upset them and the coach my sophomore year.  I quit the team.  There was a more important item on my agenda.  I had just turned sixteen and was eligible to take drivers education after school.  Getting your license was a rite of passage.  I could have waited until school was out and taken drivers education in summer school, but that would have meant delaying my freedom for at least four month. 

All that said, it was still a few months till I could get behind the wheel by myself.  The only driving as part of the class was in a fenced in a parking lot.  All the cars were Plymouth Valiants equipped with automatic transmissions.  Our 1959 Chevy station wagon had a stick shift.  I spent a lot of Sunday afternoons, with my dad beside me, driving around a mall parking lot.  I mastered most of it but my dad insisted that I be able to start the car from a standing stop on a steep grade.  Personally, I think it was delaying tactic but on an August Tuesday afternoon at 4:00 PM (how’s that for a memory) my dad took off of work early so I could take my driving test. I passed the first time.  Funny, I was never asked to start on an incline or parallel parking. I still had to share the car with my dad, and there were also a lot of restrictions.   I had my license and that meant eventual freedom.

Things have changed.  Getting your driver’s license evidently is not as big a deal these days.  The number of high school seniors who have a license to drive has been on a steady decline for over a decade.  In 1975 88% of 12^th grades had their license and 86% of them had driven a car at least once in the previous year.  According to the most recent Monitoring the Future survey, done in 2015, the number of seniors who had their license to drive had dropped to 72%. Surprisingly, the number who reported that had driven a car was slightly higher 74%. 

Those who study teen culture have identified a couple of contributing factors.

Some teens do not want the responsibility that comes with driving.

In a world that puts so much emphasis on security, having your parents drive you around in not that big a deal.  Some kids really enjoy having mom and dad around.

There is also something to be said for the overly structured life many high school students live.  Some don’t have the time needed to learn to drive.

It still seems strange that we have gone from parents saying, “Can’t we put this off for a while,” to “I am tired of being your personal chauffeur. Isn’t it time you got your license?”