Why aren't younger Americans driving anymore?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/04/22/why-arent-younger-americans-driving-anymore/

by mooreds • 13 years ago

79 171 13 years ago

alttab• 13 years ago

Younger people buy their stuff online. Anytime someone wants to buy something they no longer have to drive to get it. I wouldn't be surprised if this impacts younger cohorts more as well.

Siecje• 13 years ago

That, and people can work from home. How does Facebook cut down on driving?

IvyMike• 13 years ago

The "go to the mall to hangout" itch is at least partially scratched by online interactions with friends.

thrownaway24242• 13 years ago

Because it's a miserable experience, and a waste of time, and living in an actual city is a good way to rebel against your parents' pathological love of exurbs.

cafard2• 13 years ago

Yes, a miserable experience, often a waste of time (though I see a lot of traffic on HN about computer games...). I don't think that we boomers had a pathological love of the exurbs as such. But in many cases we moved there for perceived safety and for better public schools. In some cases I suppose because custody of the car keys gave us some more years of control.

glitchdout• 13 years ago

  often a waste of time (though I see a lot of traffic on HN about computer games...)

Wait, what?

RyanMcGreal• 13 years ago

Tragically, children are more likely to be killed in car accidents in American suburbs than by violence in American inner cities.

acheron• 13 years ago

Yeah, you couldn't pay me enough to live in a city. Comes down to the fact that people suck, and in a city you can't get away from them. I'll take my 2 acre yard any day.

MatthewPhillips• 13 years ago

I feel like what you consider to be "an actual city" is only the top 5-10 biggest cities in the U.S.

thrownaway24242• 13 years ago

Why do you think that? Most of the ten largest cities in the US are disposable agglomerations of endless suburbs, like Houston or Phoenix, where it would be close to impossible to live without a car. A "real city" to me is a place where people routinely have real meatspace interactions with other people, not intermediated by metal and glass containers. Most of these places are mid-sized, except for New York and Chicago.

mjmahone17• 13 years ago

Because in the US, those are the only cities that have the public services to make them a truly cohesive unit: in Phoenix, for instance, the houses are too widespread, and the downtown too filled with parking lots, to allow for a strong sense of the community as a city existing (I grew up just outside Phoenix, and if you don't have a car, i.e. are 14, you can't engage in city activities, such as the zoo, or museums, etc.. And even when you do have a car, it doesn't feel like a city when getting from a typical home to a D-Backs game takes 45 minutes, and then you have to walk 30 minutes to get from the parking lot, and while you're walking you only pass industrial lots and parking structures).

brudgers• 13 years ago

The cellphone means that young people don't have to "drive to the mall" to see if their friends are hanging out there. They can just call and find out where the party is...or just talk on the phone instead of face to face...or just use Facebook, etc.

Their communications are more efficient.

pogden• 13 years ago

All of the reasons mentioned in the article play into this, but they missed a big one: young Americans tend to prefer access over ownership, and there just aren't any good ways to use a car. Zipcar is expensive, especially if you stay at your destination for any period of time.

rdouble• 13 years ago

TL;DR because they are too broke for gas, and don't have a job to drive to, anyway. And Facebook.

hkmurakami• 13 years ago

>–It’s harder to get a license. From 1996 to 2006, every state enacted graduated driving laws that make it more cumbersome for young people to get licenses. “Young people must now take more behind-the-wheel training (which is more expensive), fulfill additional requirements for permits, and once they are allowed to drive, they are often restricted to driving in the daytime without passengers.” The number of younger Americans without a driver’s license has risen from 21 percent to 26 percent since 2001.

This is a great development, considering the recklessness of many young drivers and their relatively high accident rates.

I always thought that the roads would be much safer if our legal drinking age and legal driving ages were switched, so that we'd have years of experience dealing with the effects of alcohol before we hit the roads, which would hopefully decrease incidents of driving under the influence of alcohol.

jerf2• 13 years ago

"This is a great development, considering the recklessness of many young drivers and their relatively high accident rates."

Is it? Is it working? I just spent five minutes on Google trying to answer that question, but if it's out there it's buried under megabytes of high-Google-juice warnings about teenaged driving.

It's only a positive development if it's working. If it isn't working, then it's just an expensive imposition sucking away time and funds that could have been spent on something more productive. But I honestly don't know which is the case. Anyone have a better bead on analysis than I do? I think it's an interesting question. Many of these programs have been going on for long enough that there ought to be an answer out there somewhere.

mechagodzilla2• 13 years ago

It looks like it is actually working. I pulled this data from the CDC's website[1] for auto-related fatalities for Americans aged 14-19 (population is total # of teenagers):

YEAR DEATHS POPULATION

1999 5,508 24,099,614

2000 5,561 24,272,121

2001 5,513 24,515,654

2002 5,943 24,742,879

2003 5,582 25,019,050

2004 5,564 25,510,811

2005 5,234 25,839,430

2006 5,186 26,116,159

2007 4,986 26,327,320

2008 4,067 26,408,974

2009 3,514 26,378,690

2010 3,159 26,206,325

[1]http://webappa.cdc.gov/sasweb/ncipc/mortrate10_us.html

w1ntermute2• 13 years ago

> I always thought that the roads would be much safer if our legal drinking age and legal driving ages were switched, so that we'd have years of experience dealing with the effects of alcohol before we hit the roads, which would hopefully decrease incidents of driving under the influence of alcohol.

Not to mention it's easier to illegally gain access to alcohol than it is to illegally get access to a car, so the probability that the higher driving age law would be flouted would be lower than the rate at which the drinking age law is flouted right now.

nitrogen5• 13 years ago

In response to dead sibling comment by parasitius:

I agree with your sentiment but not your tone. There is a lot of anti-suburban, anti-car elitism on HN that is apparently ignorant of the very real need for personal transportation for the vast majority of people, even in many major cities. I would support increased driver training requirements (especially specific training and experience with loss of control on various surfaces), but not without a way of ensuring that the transportation and employment needs of everyone, including youth, are still met.

Also, you're probably aware, but your account has been dead for a long time, apparently due to excessively harsh and/or personal negative comments.

  ------

In response to the general subject of driving, it is my opinion that arbitrary point-to-point human mobility is an essential feature of an ideal society. The inability to move from place to place for employment, vacation, or recreation is, again in my opinion, detrimental to society's mutual respect and wellbeing, and leads to economic and cultural segregation.

nitrogen5• 13 years ago

parasitius 18 minutes ago | link [dead]

I'm not sure what it means for my account to be dead, it seems I can comment as normal? is there any way to make it undead, without making a whole new account? I'd be willing to change my tone, I'm trying to become more positive this year ^_^

It means that your comments are only visible to people who turn on "showdead" in their profile settings, and it's impossible to respond to you directly.

In theory you can try to contact one of the YC or HN site admins, or PG himself, if you want your account restored. I don't know what's involved or what sort of argument you should make. It might be easier to begin your new tone and new resolve with a new account.

lkozma• 13 years ago

The needs for personal transportation might be very real, but they will fall away like a house of cards in the face of issues like the (non-)availability of fossil fuels, the destruction of the environment, etc.

saraid2163• 13 years ago

> In response to the general subject of driving, it is my opinion that arbitrary point-to-point human mobility is an essential feature of an ideal society. The inability to move from place to place for employment, vacation, or recreation is, again in my opinion, detrimental to society's mutual respect and wellbeing, and leads to economic and cultural segregation.

But a pervasive public transit system, combined with cycling and walking, achieves that. What it doesn't achieve is the capacity to ship large items between arbitrary points, and a distinct comparative slowness when traveling long distances (vaguely defined).

And you could just as easily argue that the health of a society is degraded by the over-usage of what amounts to an isolating coffin on wheels. There are no opportunities to casually chat with a stranger (unless you carpool with different people, or yell out the window at stopped traffic lights) while in transit: only the endpoints of your trip matter for the cross-pollination you speak of. I would expect this results in zones of high quality surrounded by the mortar of low quality areas.

Incidentally, I picked up this book today: http://www.amazon.com/Walkable-City-Downtown-Save-America/dp... I haven't read it yet and thus cannot recommend it.

zalew3• 13 years ago

> This is a great development, considering the recklessness of many young drivers and their relatively high accident rates

A lot of people think that if obtaining a license is harder, the roads will be safer, but it's more an urban wisdom than science. If you take various numbers from around the world, you will notice there is no linear correlation between those two, especially when harder is pay more than you should and sit in class harder, instead of learn how to run a special stage on snow and ice harder. Also, in places where driving is a privilege, drivers tend to feel privileged. The sad truth is just that almost everywhere driving training simply sucks, with the well-known exception of Finland.

jacalata• 13 years ago

I've never heard anything about Finnish driver training - if I were naming a well known exception it would be Germany.

ekianjo3• 13 years ago

"This is a great development, considering the recklessness of many young drivers and their relatively high accident rates."

Wow, restricting people's freedom, a great development? Seriously ? Why not restrict access to computers considering the recklessness of "hackers" ? And so on.

You are going to build a bleak future if people do not drive as much.

egypturnash• 13 years ago

Or.

Imagine that Google's self-driving car efforts come to fruition. That self-driving cars are common, legal, and trusted.

Who needs to drive in that future?

More: Imagine a successor to Zipcar with a fleet of self-driving cars. Who needs to even own a car? You just log in and summon a car from a nearby lot. It's there in a few minutes, and it takes you where you need to go; when you need to go back home, you summon another one.

In the future, owning a car and knowing how to drive it yourself may well be considered eccentric.

shrikant• 13 years ago

Are you serious about the analogy?

An improperly driven car can harm other people, even with the best intentions of the inexperienced driver.

An improperly used computer by a well-intentioned user -- not so much.

softbuilder• 13 years ago

>This is a great development

As someone who was socioeconomically prevented from getting a license until his mid-20s, no, it's not. A license in many cases is a ticket out of poverty and a chance to break the cycle of poverty. This is especially true in rural or far-flung suburban areas.

That said, the poor behavior of young drivers is a legitimate concern. I'm all for addressing it. Just not a fan of economically disenfranchising people.

pixl97• 13 years ago

A better way to word that is 'the poor behavior of young _____', you could put any number of words in there and have the same effect. Youth are not well known for having great risk assessment abilities. At the same time, they do not have property, wealth, and families to add in to any risk assessment they would make.

That said, youth need experience, we are not ready made adults and have to suffer the consequence of our mistakes to learn much of the time. Studies showing that adults make fewer poor decisions should realize a lot of that is because of the previous poor decisions that person had already made.

saraid2163• 13 years ago

> This is especially true in rural or far-flung suburban areas.

There are ways of addressing this that do not involve increasing the likelihood that you kill yourself, though. Better police in the neighborhood, better public transportation in the exurbs, better access to educational materials, better communication infrastructure, and so on.

These are, of course, harder solutions. It is certainly easier in terms of policy to simply roll the dice and acknowledge that those who survive the commute are more fit for society by virtue of not being dead.

yolonoexception• 13 years ago

>Young people must now take more behind-the-wheel training (which is more expensive) >fulfil additional requirements for permits

This is not true at all. I do not know where he is getting his information. And there are literally no requirements for the permit. All you do is take a vision test and a knowledge multiple choice on the computer which anyone can pass if they know the simple basics.

>and once they are allowed to drive, they are often restricted to driving in the daytime without passengers.

This only applies to people with a provisional license (if you are under 18), and you can have passengers as long as they are in your family (brothers or sisters), and this only lasts for the first 6 months.

BruceIV5• 13 years ago

These requirements do tend to differ from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Yours is likely rather permissive.

r00fus• 13 years ago

> This is a great development, considering the recklessness of many young drivers and their relatively high accident rates.

This would be a great development indeed, if alternate forms of transportation like buses, light-rail and train services were vastly improved.

While I champion the idea of bike commuting (ie live close to where you work), carpooling and vanpooling (have done all three for years sequentially), the goal of getting more dangerous drivers (ie, inexperienced teens) off the road shouldn't disenfranchise them. Non-drivers need transport as well, and most US cities are abhorrent for this compared to other developed countries (HK, France, UK, Brazil, Russia all have amazing transport systems).

wybo• 13 years ago

> I always thought that the roads would be much safer if our legal drinking age and legal driving ages were switched

They are switched in many Western European countries, and imho that works fine. Also because there generally is more public transportation and/or neighbourhood pubs/clubs.

(though some countries have raised the drinking age, making them come about at the same time, which is even worse)

A 16 drinking age, 18 driving age does create quite a different youth culture though. Less fuss about alcohol (though it differing more with parents permissiveness), more about cars, and early networks and contacts being more local.

dade_• 13 years ago

In Alberta, I passed the test for a learners permit at 14, which required being with a licenced driver. Practicing driving at 14 on Sunday mornings and quiet highways is an excellent way to learn to drive, and I think to train the brain to react automatically to events that happen too quickly for the conscious mind. My experience anyway. That said, thanks Dad and my friend that donated part of his clutch. :)

Mvandenbergh• 13 years ago

A better solution to that is graduated licensing where all new drivers start with restrictions on what times they can drive, at what speed, whether they can drive on highways, with friends of the same age in the car, etc.

terhechte3• 13 years ago

I always think of driving a car as managing a steam engine machine during the industrial revolution. There're levers, and pedals and cogwheels, and everything needs to be pulled and turned in certain directions. Short, I hate it and it is bad for the environment. Also, cars are expensive, need a lot of care, consume space, and going anywhere always ends up searching frantically for parking space. I rather outsource the whole transportation business to public transport and then I can also code or read while I'm moving and not have to administer this weird steam-engine-like machinery.

omegaham• 13 years ago

Unfortunately, where I live, (smallish city in southwestern Arizona) a car is a requirement. Grocery store? Nine miles. Hardware store? Four more miles.

Oh, and it's 120 degrees outside in the summer.

That being said, parking is abundant, gas is relatively cheap, and traffic is very nice. So it's not too bad. I would never want to have a car in the city, though.

terhechte3• 13 years ago

Yeah, I can see your point. My mom lives in a pretty rural area, too, and I bought her a car. In the city, it's different, and I was kinda talking about living in the city. I moved to a big city as fast as I could. (Not just the car business, but I also like good theaters, good social events, easy connection to airports, etc)

sukuriant3• 13 years ago

Personally, I rather enjoy driving my car; and I would enjoy driving a Tesla, too, and they're not [as] bad [supposedly] for the environment. Or at least their badness is a one-off rather than a continual thing. To each their own, I suppose.

That said, I frequently train myself to drive just a little bit better in just a little bit harsher conditions. Learn where my car's tires limits for sliding are, and learn how they gradually change over time as the tires wear down. Learn how much I can accelerate at a given moment at a given speed, so that I can use that for avoiding an obstacle. Learn how efficiently I can brake and turn under braking, so I know how well I can avoid other kinds of obstacles.

It's an experience, to me, to drive a car, and control it and tell it where to go; and the only way I've ever gotten better at it was to actually drive and drive quite a lot, in many unique situations. Rain, snow, heavy traffic, low traffic, light, dark, fog, low visibility, high visibility, and so on.

But meh, to each their own.

Back on topic. I think we need proper drivers education that has a physical foot-to-pedal, hand-to-wheel sort of education for our drivers :/

gambiting3• 13 years ago

Well, just because you don't like it, why should everybody else not use it? If you don't like driving, then don't. And I don't mind more efficient public transport. But what is "steam engine machinery" for you is fascinating and a pure pleasure to use for somebody else. And to be honest, modern cars are easier to use than some kitchen appliances - don't need to insert a key anymore, press a button on the dashboard, you get two pedals, one to go faster,the other to go slower, and then turn the round spiny-thing to go in the direction you want to. Seriously, bicycles are more complicated to use than than.

terhechte3• 13 years ago

Where did I write that? I explicitly stated why I don't like cars. Everybody else can do whatever they please. I was describing my personal attitude towards cars, and explaining why I feel the way I feel - related to the topic of the submission.

codva• 13 years ago

//It’s harder to get a license. From 1996 to 2006//

As the parent of two teenagers, it is my opinion that at least in VA, it is still way too easy to get a license.

Although neither of mine had that desire to get a license as soon as possible, like we did as kids. My son didn't get his until weeks before his 18th birthday. My 17 year old daughter still just has a permit and doesn't seem to be in any hurry either, which is fine with me.

CrazedGeek• 13 years ago

I'm 19 and attending university. The local bus system has a bus that goes from literally in front of my apartment to the heart of campus, and it's free for students. I buy things from Amazon or a supermarket that's only about a mile away. Almost all of my entertainment is digital in some fashion (usually downloaded TV shows or movies). And I don't live in a huge city -- its population is about 100k. I have a car that I use maybe once a week at best. I just don't see the point in driving all that much.

badkangaroo2• 13 years ago

sounds great. I live in san francisco, every time there's a ballgame (today) at AT&T park I have to contend on my bike with hundreds of suburban drivers who think bikes are supposed to be on the sidewalk. Aside from that, I drive my car about once every other month.

NuZZ2• 13 years ago

Do you guys have visually obvious bike lanes over there?

joezydeco• 13 years ago

Does anyone have a corresponding graph of passenger air-miles flown for the same period? I'm curious about the impact of lower-cost airlines and if "road-trip" vacations have been substituted by airline trips.

redwood• 13 years ago

One major thing missing here: we like to be spontaneous and unpredictable. That means that a car can often be a ball and chain.

Want to go get a drink with friends in the park and who knows where you'll end up? Have fun getting back to your car tomorrow morning.

kibwen• 13 years ago

I agree with you in principle, but when I got my first car it was nothing but an explosive enabler of my spontaneity. One of my fondest college memories is suddenly deciding, at 3:00 PM on New Year's Eve, to drive 350 miles to my girlfriend's house so that we could kiss at the stroke of midnight.

Of all the things that I'd consider a ball and chain, my car is hardly among them.

sukuriant3• 13 years ago

Ditto. In fact, for spontaneous events, I am often THE CAR for my friends! How's that for irony. Especially for the night-owl crowd and exploring person, a car provides an enabler for spontenaity.

Other things made easier with a car:

    * getting to a mountain to hike
    * getting to the mountain for extreme sports
    * long distance travel on a whim
    * going /anywhere/ on a whim that's further than a walk away, especially when 
      time tables are involved (see: movies)
    * getting to a location where your fun activity is located.
      Example: owning a horse and getting to their stable.

sk5t• 13 years ago

If I had to guess...

  - spending money spent on smartphones and online goods
  - time spent online, playing computer or console games
  - less necessity to travel to have fun
  - disinterest in dealing with government/insurance regime
  - more interest in recreational drugs (booze and other)
  - the increasing intrusiveness, heavy fines, and penalties imposed by a police state with particular regard to vehicular travel

icpmacdo• 13 years ago

200+ dollars a month for insurance is a big reason I think young people dont have cars

signalsignal• 13 years ago

Two main reasons:

1) Youth income is low given low employment and a stagnant economy which some would call a recession.

2) High gas prices means less cars and more public transit.

to3m• 13 years ago

One take on the phenomenon: http://statesofmotion.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/wasted-youth.ht... - the author is clearly a car nut, though! Personally i suspect the car has just had its time in the limelight, as a fashionable item at the bleeding edge of culture and engineering, and is destined to turn into a commodity good, like the fridge freezer. Assuming it's not there already. Just takes a new generation for attitudes to change, as with everything...

jchrisa• 13 years ago

Quality of life correlates strongly with low rates of car driving, in my experience.

frooxie• 13 years ago

I've used the car/fridge comparison before, but when I think about it, I'm actually excited to get a new fridge (my current one is too small), and I'm not sure I'll ever want a car. I suppose cars have their uses, but they're expensive, dangerous, boring and smell bad. And I'm nearly 40.

downtoearth• 13 years ago

For someone live in a country where traveling to work require an hour or two, the "How" will be much more interesting than the "Why".

illuminate• 13 years ago

"where traveling to work require an hour or two"

Plenty of areas in the US where that's the case as well.

mooreds• 13 years ago

I think the how is 'move closer to work', because unless both your home and your work are next to public transit stops, an hour or two commute pretty much requires a car.

BruceIV5• 13 years ago

Yes, but where you live is as much of a choice as where you work. If you want to live far from work, that's your prerogative, and it's a choice that generally implies car ownership, but it is a choice. (Tradespeople and the like who may not have a fixed location for "work" are exempted from this comment.)

CurtMonash2• 13 years ago

From ages 16 through 36, I lived in Cambridge, MA and then Manhattan, and didn't own a car. (I of course rented cars on business trips, and borrowed my parents' when I visited them.)

What I missed most in not having wheels was convenience in shopping and so on. Groceries aside, that's now largely obviated by e-commerce. And grocery shopping alone is hardly a reason to have a car ...

Now easier rentals -- Zipcar! -- raise a whole other reason not to own one's own car.

Further, there was an era when cars provided teenagers with private space, a bit of a chance for sexual exploration, and so on. When both their parents have jobs, however, that's less needed. That's reason #1 much of the "romance" of cars is gone.

Reason #2 is that electronic items have supplanted cars as major aspirations. Phones, computers, etc. are gateways to the world the way automobiles used to be.

Reason #3 (small but still worth mentioning) that cars lost their romance is their boring, aerodynamically-wise designs. Reason #4, related, is the environmentalist pushback against cars.

userulluipeste2• 13 years ago

There is something that solutions like public transportation, taxis, or Zipcar-like car-sharing lack - hygiene. Because those aren't personal, more often than not, the hygiene is not in your control.

CurtMonash2• 13 years ago

So you step from your hygienically awesome home into your hygienically awesome car, drive it, and get out. (I presume that this is the goal of having and driving a car.)

How's the hygiene at your destination?

as_if• 13 years ago

If you live in a (bigger) city you simply don't need a car...

I can drive to the store by bike or even walk there if I want.

I work in a different city than I live and travel to my workplace by train in 30min.

The only things I need a car for are travels to are tiny town which doesn't have good public transports or when I need to transport something thats to heavy to carry.

BruceIV5• 13 years ago

I'm in the same boat - I'm in a city of a half million, and I own a car, but it's a decade old, and I only use it 1) evenings and weekends when the bus doesn't run as often, 2) when I want to move heavy and/or large items, or 3) when I travel out of town. Between those I only put about 10-15,000 km on my car in a year, and at least a third of that is cross-country road trips to visit my family.

pshin453• 13 years ago

> Technology is making it easier to go car-free

This makes me wonder what the future of driving and personal transportation will look like.

Regarding the sharing economy, pg recently Tweeted "Will ownership turn out to be largely a hack people resorted to before they had the infrastructure to manage sharing properly?"

I'm originally from New Jersey and I'm currently living in Seoul, Korea. Back home in NJ, you literally couldn't get anywhere without a car. Besides getting to NYC, public transportation (buses) was basically useless or nonexistant. Now I live in Seoul which is super densely populated and has arguably the best, most advanced public transportation infrastructure in the world. I've never driven a car in Seoul simply because I've never had to - Subways and buses are faster, cheaper, cognitively easier to use, and I never have to worry about finding a parking spot.

There have been a lot of new startups entering or looking to enter this space - Ridesharing services, parking spot finder apps, Google driverless car, etc. - But which will become the dominant form of transportation in the next 5~10 years and why? I'm fascinated to see what people "in the know" and involved in this space think.

prostoalex2• 13 years ago

For historians of the future the past 100 years will be this weird time period where we stopped riding horses for transportation, but haven't yet invented autonomous self-driving vehicles.

pshin453• 13 years ago

Yeah there are so many of those "we're at a weird time period where..." that we're in the midst of right now.

I think thankfully computer graphics has gotten good enough in our lifetime that CGI animation in movies & TV will soon become perfectly indistinguishable from real life. No more uncanny valley.

I think steroids will become a non-issue in sports in the near future, where the line between what's "natural" enhancement and what's "artificial" enhancement becomes impossible to enforce or legislate.

Plastic surgery has gotten better over the years but it's still pretty easy to identify who's gotten it and who hasn't. I shudder to imagine a world where anyone can become as beautiful as they want without others realizing that they've had work done. The societal implications are beyond what my brain can handle.

badkangaroo2• 13 years ago

i wish less older people would drive as well, or at least be re-tested behind the wheel after retirement.

aceofspades196• 13 years ago

A thousand times this. It seems like no one cares about the elderly driving but they are frothing at the mouth to punish young drivers and make increasingly harder - and non-nonsensical restrictions on them. But a 90 year old man that can't see and hear can drive as much as he wants without any restrictions even though he is arguably higher risk than a young person who can see, hear and react faster

Zak4• 13 years ago

Old people vote, and tend to have more effective lobbying groups than young people do. Those under 18, in particular cannot vote, and those just over often don't.

On a possibly related note: nobody I've voted for for Federal office has ever won that office. I don't know enough about the relevant theory to say what effect that might have on how hard a politician should go after my vote, but it seems noteworthy.

bane6• 13 years ago

A few anecdotes:

1) A few weeks ago, a 15 year old girl in my neighborhood, learning to drive on a slow side road with her parent in the car, mistook the gas for the break while practicing backing up and ran over three young children putting them in critical condition.

2) A relative of mine was given a new big "safe" vehicle for her 16th birthday. The photos from the event were full of incredible excited smiles.

Three months later, while leaving her part-time "earn your own gas money" job, she met a "cute guy" friend of hers from school who wanted to bum a ride. Foolishly she agreed, on the way to her vehicle, two of her "cute guy"'s friends suddenly showed up asking if they too could bum a ride.

Peer pressure and hormones fully kicked in, they all loaded into the vehicle and started on their way.

On a clear evening, doing about 40 on a paved road with no other traffic, she veered off the road surface, over-corrected getting back on, cut sideways across the road into a field and hit a tree straight on.

She was killed instantly, one of the boys is paralyzed from the neck down and the other two spent a bit of time in critical condition in the hospital.

3) After that happened I thought back to when I was a 16 year old, with a used beater car and what kind of stupid stupid driving I did back then. It was a miracle I survived almost any time I got behind the wheel.

This was even considering that, growing up in a rural area, my parents taught me to drive on the back roads when I was about 11 (in case of an emergency). They had me practice regular driving up until I got my actual license. Even after almost 5 years of sporadic driving lessons, including a minor fender bender in my parent's driveway. Despite passing the driving exam on my first shot with no practice and no studying, I still drove like a damn fool. (and in my state at the time we had to have something like 20 hours of professionally supervised behind the wheel instruction and 20 hours of classroom before being allowed to take the test).

It wasn't until I hit about 20 that I started to drive like a person concerned at all with preserving my lifespan.

Younger American's shouldn't drive. We should get a learners at 18, be required to have a fully licensed person over 25 (or better yet a parental unit) in the car with us until 19, then no passengers at all till we get a real license at 21. It's not just familiarity with alcohol or any of that, young people are just simply not yet fully wired to deal with complex social pressures, impulse control or any of the other kinds of "maturity issues" needed to operate a 2 ton block of iron that can be coaxed to 100mph in under 30 seconds.

UberMouse2• 13 years ago

So similar to what we have in New Zealand, but different ages. 16 and you can get a learners, have to spend a year (I think) driving with someone who has had their full for over two years After that you take a driving test to get a restricted and you can drive by yourself with no passengers as long as it's not over either 11pm or midnight for a year (Again not sure) and I think you can cut it to 6 months if you take a defensive driving course Then you can take another driving test to get your full license

cpursley• 13 years ago

Dosen't NZ have relatively high road fatalities?

prostoalex2• 13 years ago

Isn't that the Outliers type of deal? Dedicate N hours to the craft, and you'll rise as a master of it? The problem is that for driving skills N tends to be a pretty low number.

Camillo• 13 years ago

I think this story was mainly about the changing preferences of young adults, not teenagers. Letting people drive at 16 is an American anomaly, but what we have here are people in their 20s and 30s who would be perfectly able to drive, but choose not to.

zalew3• 13 years ago

> a new big "safe" vehicle

> doing about 40

> She was killed instantly, one of the boys is paralyzed from the neck down

that's what happens when you don't fasten your seatbelts. or your passengers don't fasten their seatbelts and kill you on their way to the windshield.

aceofspades196• 13 years ago

Yeah that works until you live in an area without any useful public transit. I live in BC and in my town you can't go anywhere without a car, and I have to drive 40km to the next town for some of my university classes and there is NO bus route at all to get to those classes. I'm only 21, how would you propose I get to class if I didn't have my drivers license? The problem in North America is that a lot of places do not have public transportation so you have to drive and not everyone's parents can drive them _everywhere_ _all the time_.

Aside from that, all of your anecdotes could happen to anyone at any age if they don't have any experience driving, hell your first anecdote could have happened to a 40 year old if they didn't know how to drive. I disagree that age makes that much of a difference in driving, inexperience is the problem and you can't avoid that.

UberMouse2• 13 years ago

Under his rules you would be able to drive by yourself from 19, so you would be fine.

BruceIV5• 13 years ago

It's a lot harder to learn how to drive once you move out of your parents' and can't borrow their car (and their presence as a licenced tutor), and in rural areas (I grew up in one too), you need a car to get anywhere.

That said, city dwellers can get by for most of their trips with public transit, bicycle, or on foot, and by the time I have kids and am teaching them to drive I fully expect autonomous cars - the current generation may be the last one that learns how to drive themselves.

Derbasti• 13 years ago

Please note that just about all of Europe requires you to be 18 ro get a drivers license. And no, the US is not different. In many places, public transportation in rural areas is just as bad as in the US. You know what people do if they can't drive 40 miles to college every day? They move.

namdnay• 13 years ago

Just to play devil's advocate: maybe you should factor in public transportation infrastructure when choosing where you live?

Tichy2• 13 years ago

move?

userulluipeste2• 13 years ago

The fact that almost anyone has a car is a strong reason NOT to establish a line of public transportation in a rural area. This is kind of a chicken-and-egg problem.

Also, there are solutions for covering 40 km without having a car driver licence. If a few hours of biking is too much of an effort, there are small-capacity cylinder motor-bikes like scooters or mopeds that have either low-requirement licence or require no driving licence at all.

bane6• 13 years ago

I hear ya, like I said I grew up super rural as well. For example, using Google's directions from where I grew up to the nearest big city using public transit has me start the trip with a half hour drive/taxi ride.

I'm just trying to fix dead young drivers, but I totally agree that it screws up the world for people under 25.

all of your anecdotes could happen to anyone at any age if they don't have any experience driving

Actually, I'll go one further, I know of quite a few drivers with plenty of experience, decades even, who struggle to control their vehicle on a day-to-day basis. It's like they're just incapable of learning the skill. My father-in-law, for example, has probably 40 years of experience behind the wheel and drives so poorly that I pretty much refuse to ride in or near a vehicle he's driving. One of my wife's former bosses drives perpetually 15 miles under the speed limit and goes into a near panic attack if she has to drive slowly and look at house numbers at the same time when trying to find a new place.

I honestly don't know how to solve that outside of autonomous vehicles and significantly harder licensing.

svachalek• 13 years ago

I'm sorry for your family. I'm a little freaked out by how many people think gigantic SUVs are great "safe" cars for bad drivers. They're really prone to rolling and generally have way too much power, so whether they're safe for the driver is questionable and they're certainly not safe for everyone around them. My neighbor pressed the wrong pedal one day and drove into my house. I and most of my friends learned to drive on crappy old cars that had trouble getting up steep hills.

Anyway, I think maturity is something you gain by being in situations that require it. I'm not sure that keeping everyone in a padded room until they're 25 will result in fully mature adults walking out.

icebraining• 13 years ago

Yes, but we could find ways of letting people mature that don't involve giving them control of two tons of accelerated steel on public area. It's not like people who can't afford cars stay children forever.

For example, we could provide training areas/streets (paid, hopefully) where people can drive without big obstacles or crossing children.

nradov• 13 years ago

While tragic those anecdotes are no basis for a sane public policy. Picking ages like 16, 18, 19, or 21, or 25 is entirely too arbitrary.

We should be able to mathematically model the optimal age to allow driver licenses. All of the data is out there. In favor of waiting longer we save quality-adjusted life years and reduce property damage from fewer collisions. But there are costs to waiting longer by reducing earning potential and forcing other drivers to waste time ferrying youth around.

bane6• 13 years ago

Research shows [1] that around 25 is when young adults start to become statistically safer as drivers (most notably males, but trying to pass different laws for females vs. males in this case would be politically impossible), regardless of experience.

1 - There's lots and lots and lots of this research on the internet. I won't bother to start linking, a couple seconds of googling will give you more than you'd ever possibly want to know

yummyfajitas• 13 years ago

Wow, tragic anecdotes as a substitute for statistics. Awesome.

An important question - currently 17 year olds are bad drivers, due primarily to being unskilled (only 1 year of driving experience). Suppose we adopt your plan and limit driving to 18+. Why do you feel that unskilled 19 year olds (with 1 year driving experience) won't get into accidents at a similar rate?

bane6• 13 years ago

Wow, tragic anecdotes as a substitute for statistics. Awesome.

Remember, while a collection of anecdotes don't make statistical data, each statistical datum has an anecdote.

Mechagodzilla linked to statistics for auto-fatalities 14-19 from the CDC here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5592730 each and every one of those teens died with an associated tragic anecdote.

An important question

There's lots of research out that shows that teenagers show poor impulse control and practice reckless behavior. It's unclear from the research if that's due to only having slightly less than two decades of life experience rather than slightly more, or if it's some fundamental difference in the development of their brains, combined with surges of hormones that leads to this. It's particularly noticeable among male teenagers. [1]

My assertion is that an unskilled 20+ year old, just starting to drive would be fundamentally safer on the road than an unskilled 16 year old with equivalent driving experience (or lack thereof). [2]

I set 18 as the age since at 18 you are legally recognized as an adult and full citizen, but we as a society have no problem limiting some legal rights and/or discriminating against people between 18 and 21 and 25 (drinking age, car insurance rates and rental car availability). Note: I don't fundamentally agree with this, just observing it when recommending a driving age. The reason insurance rates and rental car availability is problematic for those under 25, particularly males, is largely a reflection of statistical fact. Young guys, regardless of experience, tend to be involved in more accidents until about 25. It's been a while since I looked into it, but I believe this roughly coincides with changes in male hormone levels at around that age. Some more statistics [3].

1- http://healthland.time.com/2012/10/02/why-the-teen-brain-is-...

2 - http://injuryprevention.bmj.com/content/8/suppl_2/ii17.full

3 - http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/810853.pdf

pullo• 13 years ago

Just a thought..Would separate lanes with different speed limits avoid some of these accidents? It will also be easier to monitor the unskilled drivers, without taking away a an important privilege. And I am sorry for your loss, your comment takes me back to my days as a beginner and what an awful driver i was.

blackjack48• 13 years ago

The article neglected to mention that technology use really requires you to go car-free. Many states are enacting hands-free laws and every indication suggests that outright bans on cell phone use will follow. (http://www.cnn.com/2011/12/13/us/ntsb-cell-phone-ban) Car manufacturers have been trying to integrate voice commands and web services in car dashboards, but those features can't compete with the full productivity enabled by access to a mobile device. Public transit operators need to understand that wifi access will be a deciding factor for many commuters looking to go car-free.

john_w_t_b• 13 years ago

I agree. Smartphones have made public transit much more enjoyable. You can read HN or play games while waiting at the bus stop for example. I don't think Wifi is a big deciding factor as mobile data plans are standard with most smartphones and tethering is becoming more common also.

theorique3• 13 years ago

every indication suggests that outright bans on cell phone use will follow.

Even headset / speaker phones? Lots of current cars seem to have bluetooth built in or speaker phones that integrate with the car audio system.

jonsterling• 13 years ago

I'm 20 and I haven't the faintest idea how to drive; don't intend to learn in the near future, though I may be forced to at some later day...

Tichy2• 13 years ago

I'm 40, got a drivers license when I was 23 and only used it 4 times. Now I have forgotten how to drive because I haven't done it for years.

beatpanda• 13 years ago

1) Climate change is going to kill us all

2) A hot bike is more likely to get you laid than a hot car

CASE CLOSED. Now can we please stop talking about reduced driving like its a problem?

venomsnake• 13 years ago

Got my driving licence the day I hit 18 (disclosure not living in the US) and always had the means to support a car and drive (bonus of starting working as a developer on age 15). Two years ago it expired and I didn't bother to renew it. The car shines only outside the city - great public transport and cabs give you more than enough flexibility.

I think that factors are coliding - the car is deromanticized, it is expensive and it is a drain on the free time. I feel that rent-a-car is a industry in grave need of disrupting.

There are a lot of owned vehicles that do less than 2K miles per year. A Uber/Air bnb type startup that allows to rent a car from a person for the weekend may have potential.

derwiki• 13 years ago

www.getaround.com is at least one such site. Although my friend who has her car posted said she gets only about one rental a month (in SF).

andyhmltn3• 13 years ago

Can anybody tell me if it's the same for young americans as it is for young british drivers? I can't drive at the moment because the lessons cost £40 an hour, the test costs ~£150 with car hire. Insurance can cost up to £4k a year and petrol for my commute would cost me about £70 a week.

yardie5• 13 years ago

Former young American: Lessons? Have your parents drive you to the park or just whip around the neighbourhood until you're confident to go on the main streets. Driving schools are available (much fewer than in the UK or europe) and the only ones that use them are people that have them as a court requirement.

The test was $50 when I took it. The learners permit is written only. A few weeks/months later you can drive back to the licensing office to take the driving exam. You'll need a car, any car from a licensed driver will do.

Insurance will be about $180 or £1400. I paid less than that because I had high grades (responsible student discount), no loan on the car, and I took the state minimum with the sketchiest insurance company I could find.

I paid about $100/mo for petrol. Until 17 you can only go to school and work during the week, weekends affords you more freedoms.

Working 20hrs/week part-time it's feasible to operate a car. While everyone goes on about how public transport is great. I don't see anyone bringing SCUBA gear on a bus, or moving apartments. Having a car meant freedom. Freedom to date, go places, and do things.

andyhmltn3• 13 years ago

Hmm, when you said $180 or £1400. Did you mean $1800 or £140? I could operate a car easily with the amount that I'm earning now, but when you compare that £5k+ cost to £120 a month for unlimited train use, it's really not something I've spent a lot of time contemplating.

TheCoelacanth• 13 years ago

> Driving schools are available (much fewer than in the UK or europe) and the only ones that use them are people that have them as a court requirement.

Increasingly, taking some kind of formalized classes is becoming a requirement to get a license. When I got my license in Virginia in 2005, anyone under 18 was required to take something like 5 hours of driving classes in lieu of the normal driving exam. I believe the requirement has increased since then.

eli_gottlieb2• 13 years ago

I got my license at age 23 in MA last year. For someone below the age of 18, you basically had to do formal lessons. For someone long-since above 18, formal lessons were a Good Idea because the teacher would coach you on how to pass a road test (as opposed to how to drive in MA, which is a separate skill).

NameNickHN• 13 years ago

With all the gadgets like smartphones etc. to buy who has money to pay for a car?

EliRivers• 13 years ago

I did find a report once that made a very strong case that it's not young drivers that are the problem - it's inexperienced drivers. The correlation between youth and inexperience is of course very strong, hence the (alleged) misconception. Sadly I didn't make a note of it and can't find it now.

That said, as a general rule of thumb, teenagers do suffer from various other pressures that might make them bad drivers too (although I certainly have seen people in their thirties goaded into driving badly by other people in the car).

guruz• 13 years ago

We have the same development in Germany.

Having a car is not that much of a status symbol anymore as it used to be, being ecological is "in" and saves a ton of money if you have good public transport or like biking.

I'm 29 and never owned a car.. I use Carsharing from time to time.. if I need a car I check https://www.car2go.com/de/berlin/ and https://de.drive-now.com/php/metropolis/city_berlin?cit=6099...

brazzy• 13 years ago

Same here: 36, never owned a car. I could easily afford it, but what puts me off is not the price or ecological considerations but simply the hassle of owning a hugely expensive machine that (from what I see with others) is breaking down or getting damaged and needs to be repaired all the damn time.

Of course it's only possible because I live in a city with excellent public transportation (Munich).

losvedir• 13 years ago

Oh, boy. Looking through these comments I can easily see cars being the "gun debate" of 50 years from now.

On the one hand, you have the public safety and efficiency argument of the pro-Google self-driving cars group. On the other hand, you have the freedom-loving, it's my right to operate this dangerous but fun piece of machinery group.

Before this realization, I probably would have been anti-person-driven-car and pro-let-them-have-their-guns, but that seems inconsistent now. Hm.

michaelochurch• 13 years ago

Most U.S. driving miles are commuting, which sucks.

I took an 8,137-mile road trip when I was 22 and it was a blast. I'd love to do something like that again. It cost me a few hundred bucks in gas, but it was worth it.

However, racking up 20,000 miles in a year just to get from one point to another, while a million people are (being forced into it by social convention) trying to travel the exact same routes at the exact same time, is just horrible. It's a total waste of life. I'd prefer to take public transportation or to bike if at all possible. There is simply no good in a high-traffic, stop-and-go, morning car commute.

Automotive traffic is a perfect example of failure-to-scale. Cars are amazing (I'm ignoring the environmental issues, which I imagine electric cars will solve in ~20 years) when traffic is sparse, but become prisons in the typical commute.

Also, in most cities, it's actually worth it to live in the city if your time is worth more than about $30 per hour, and when you include career-building effects that applies to most educated young people who have jobs, even if their nominal wages are lower.

Why aren't younger Americans driving anymore?

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