Gen Z is less likely to have a driver's license

I guess I've outgrown my lust for driving and cars and have become very practical instead.

I seem to have outgrown my expensive but fast and very cool Motorcycles years. Still love to ride, but no need for a machine that hits hyperspace with a twist of the wrist. Glad I had that Ducati though. :D
 
As a young man, I was always interested in cars. I even owned a Corvette for a while. Now, I want utilitarian vehicles (though I still fantasize about exotic cars.) But owning an expensive/exotic vehicle would really make me nervous. I'd always be concerned about damaging it or having it stolen.

I guess I've outgrown my lust for driving and cars and have become very practical instead. Kinda sad, really.
Opposite here. Always wanted a truly quick car (neck-snapping acceleration, not necessarily top speed)... made several attempts, including grafting a big block Chevy engine into a small Japanese sports car... but haven't made much progress, in some 30 years of trying.

Some folks have on their bucket-list, seeing the Pyramids, or cruising down the Rhine, or climbing the Alps. Or writing the Great American Novel. My dream, is a car that does the quarter mile in maybe 11 or at most 12 seconds.
 
I seem to have outgrown my expensive but fast and very cool Motorcycles years. Still love to ride, but no need for a machine that hits hyperspace with a twist of the wrist. Glad I had that Ducati though. :D
I rode my BIL's 350 KAW. Twisting the throttle brought the front wheel off the ground at will. Though I loved it, I realized that the thing was designed to kill me! I've lived the remainder of my life without a motorcycle and it was probably a good move on my part. YMMV
 
I couldn't wait to get my license at 16 but DS I had to force him to get his at almost 18 just prior to going in the Marines. He just wasn't interested in driving.
 
I remember that the most important thing in my life at the time was to get my DL when I turned 16. I took DriversEd in summer school and ace'd the book and driving portion.

We had a DrEd car with 3 on the tree (clutch.) We learned in a big parking lot. No one in my group could master the clutch the first day except me. The instructor even let me drive back to the school. (Heh, heh, my dad had let me learn the clutch in our long driveway long before DrEd.)

What a great time to be alive! Freedom for me was having a DL!

My dad was very generous in letting me drive the family car and also drive truck for the family business (for pay!)
My father tried to teach me how to drive. He yelled at me the whole time. I got so upset that I got out of the car and walked away, leaving him in the middle of city traffic.
 
My father tried to teach me how to drive. He yelled at me the whole time. I got so upset that I got out of the car and walked away, leaving him in the middle of city traffic.

I taught my first wife to drive stick shift in a cemetery. No traffic.

That worked OK, but otherwise we still got along like Ren and Stimpy. :angel:
 
I wonder what/if the insurance companies are doing to make up the loss of revenue from the under 25 male drivers. Perhaps they are passing it along to the rest of us. I learned on a slight hill in a 62 Ford Falcon 3 on the tree at 15 1/2. Got to drive a 57 Chevy to school my junior year.
 
Both my GenZ niece and nephew drive, but they also use ride share services when going out with friends. A group of 6 will uber downtown and back most weekends.
 
Lots of young people around here tool around on stand-up electric scooters, electric bikes and similar rides. No license required even though some can hit 40 mph! Lots of accidents though as they don't adhere to even basic traffic rules.

Longer trips and cold/snow might push them to Uber I suppose. Nephews just moved to downtown Chicago and while they have licenses, don't have a car.
 
Never really wanted a fast car but had a couple that could hug the curves awesomely. In high school dad had a Fiat 124 spider which he (stupidly) let me drive whenever I wanted. It wasn't fast, would top out at 105mph. But nobody could keep up with me in the curves. Quite a few times I passed up much faster cars on the outside of a long curve. I loved to toot the horn as I passed a buddy with a souped up V8! They knew if I got around them they'd never catch me. Fun albeit stupid times.
Now I have a Buick and have to remember to slow down.
 
While there are certainly some valid reasons to skip a drivers license, I think this is a symptom of a worrying problem among some young people and families. You cannot paint this topic with a broad brush, but there is a clearly a reasonably large slice of this generation that is terribly stalled in life for any number of reasons.
Uncharitably, I would say that living in Mom & Dad's upper-middle class lifestyle is a pretty sweet gig and they have little desire or need to develop the "adulting" skills needed to move. They freeze Mom and Dad in place through complaints about mental health, promises of future glory through some educational investment, or other issues.

More charitably, I think social media and a lot of societal stresses are freezing these kids in place through fear of failure or fear of violating some difficult cultural norms -- which is nearly unthinkable to them. This turns into REAL mental health issues so they sort of spin in place and develop increasingly bad/dangerous habits.

Regardless of reason, this tends to morph into a crisis for all involved when the kids become 20-somethings and its no longer cute but clearly a real life problem for the kid.

I hope this fades.
 
Good thoughts Closet_Gamer. In my early days after finishing college I moved into my parents house for a few weeks between jobs. I hated it. Not so much because I felt out of place or that I was a failure but because my parents had already downsized and aged a lot (in my mind) in the few years that I was away in college. I felt that I was just being a burden on them even though they made me feel as welcome as much as they could. Especially mom.
I guess that is the difference in how we were raised last century. IMO I was raised to be more independent than later generations are. We tried to do the same to our 2 boys and so far think we have succeeded.
 
Good thoughts Closet_Gamer. In my early days after finishing college I moved into my parents house for a few weeks between jobs. I hated it. Not so much because I felt out of place or that I was a failure but because my parents had already downsized and aged a lot (in my mind) in the few years that I was away in college. I felt that I was just being a burden on them even though they made me feel as welcome as much as they could. Especially mom.
I guess that is the difference in how we were raised last century. IMO I was raised to be more independent than later generations are. We tried to do the same to our 2 boys and so far think we have succeeded.
Thanks. I think every generation undergoes some sort of "great sorting" that shuffles the deck in terms of who finds relative success and who doesn't.

For every Gen Z kid spinning in circles, I can find several who are super driven and have a fantastic "launch" trajectory. Early laggards sometime breakout and early leaders often fade, but broadly speaking I think this generation is going to sort itself in a pretty binary fashion that will be hard on the kids and their parents.

I hope I'm wrong.
 
Interesting topic. Like many here, I couldn't wait to get my license. I had saved up to buy a "real" road bike when I turned 13. It opened up a whole new world for me and my friends. Then we saved for the next 3 years to buy cars for even more freedom.

In contrast, I have 2 young family members that don't have a license, vehicle or any savings to buy a vehicle. They're 17 and 18 and dependent on their parents to drive them everywhere: school, work, dates, etc. With no way to leave their own home, and no nearby friends, they spend most evenings and weekends sitting in their room playing video games.

Recently, one of their friends got a car, and so they have some ability to leave the house without their parent's help, but still no motivation to get a license or save up for a vehicle. They're great kids and I love them dearly, but IMO the lack of a vehicle continues to limit their social development.
 
Regardless of reason, this tends to morph into a crisis for all involved when the kids become 20-somethings and its no longer cute but clearly a real life problem for the kid.

I hope this fades.
There's hope:
A few years ago at my old high school alma mater a kid flew into class one day flying a helicopter by himself. (Showoff!! :mad:)
 
It would clutter my response to quote a bunch above, but basically I agree. This goes beyond driving, and into regular human interactions. I tell people that if I hit the work market at 23 when COVID hit, I'd be a very different person. Like most on this board, I'm somewhat introverted, but not as much as the typical whatever they call it (IJNT?) here. Anyway, I have introvert tendencies.

My first 10 years of working life helped me develop massive social skills, including finally getting over the fact I was a very bald young guy (started age 16) and start talking with women, and eventually got married at age 27. If I "WORKED FROM HOME" during this time, I'd be dead. Seriously. With work interactions, I learned to not give a darn about this and started interacting as necessary.

Driving is only a measuring stick of this issue of social conscience and interacting with people. Driving is interacting with people. I think this is the root of the problem. Face to face, bumper to bumper, hip to hip interacting is dying. This is NOT good.
 
I have a cousin whose kid wasn’t driving yet in his twenties. Cousin was in town when dad was ill and had to leave and go four hours to give her kid a ride somewhere, then come back. So I wonder if one reason for the decline in young drivers is helicopter parenting. I would have introduced the kid to uber, not to mention kicked him out of the nest.
Bingo! The parents of my young family members spend literally hours of their day driving their kids around. More than once, I've seen their parents stop what they're in the middle of (work, out at lunch, social event, etc.) because their kid texts that they're done early and want to be picked up right away. They don't see it, but it's clear all that coddling has been a huge a disservice to their kids.
 
I wonder.....
Surrounding towns around here have become increasingly anti-car over the past few years, slowly putting in place mechanisms that discourage driving.

The overall sentiment is:
"Cars are bad. Bad for the environment, for society, for people in general. They sit unused 90% of the time. We'd all be better off if we just used bicycles, car-share, Uber and public transportation. Etc etc etc"

So I wonder if this is the drumbeat of the next generation where a part of them just don't want to participate?

My Gen Z niece's rich daddy just bought her a brand new $50k BMW this summer so I can't ask her, but might there be some societal shift taking place with regards to the "acceptability" automobiles?
 
I think the main reason for their not driving is the cellphone. Why should they physically go anywhere when they can just text someone? The practice of face to face conversation is dying. Sad but true.
 
I think the main reason for their not driving is the cellphone. Why should they physically go anywhere when they can just text someone? The practice of face to face conversation is dying. Sad but true.
I also wonder if some of it is how they get to/from school. Parent dropoff vs riding the yellow school bus vs walking or biking. When I was in HS, I walked 1.5 or miles so to school to avoid riding the bus (absolutely a last resort). It was very motivating to get my license as soon as I was able. Both parents worked so never drove me or picked up, although occasionally I would walk to a friends house and their mom would give me a ride to school but still had to walk home. A license and hand-me-down car led to an after-school job that paid better than babysitting and set me on the road to FI. 😁

Most parents I know these days drive their kids to school. I see school buses but they are often not full of kids like they were when I was in school. Meanwhile I avoid driving past nearby schools during drop-off/pick-up times because it is a zoo.
 
For me, my trip to high school was: bus(15m)-->train (10m)-->bus(10m). All public, at a special student discount, of course. At age 16, I learned to drive ASAP with the hope I could afford a car or mom and dad would cough one up. And of course, gasoline was priced pretty high, about the equivalent of $3.60 today. None of this was affordable.

Alas, it didn't happen. Never had that daily student commuter car. That was my reality all through high school. Bus, train, bus. 25 cents first two years, 35 cents next two years. Two transfers. 1 hour total. We simply could not afford a car.

It is so ironic these days that there seems to be so much money for vehicles, but the kids don't want them.

Coda: so I was bald and I took the bus and train. Wow, what a catch I would be for a pretty girl. :) About the equivalent of the guys who stay in mom's basement playing games all day, I guess.
 
Last edited:
I have a cousin whose kid wasn’t driving yet in his twenties. Cousin was in town when dad was ill and had to leave and go four hours to give her kid a ride somewhere, then come back. So I wonder if one reason for the decline in young drivers is helicopter parenting. I would have introduced the kid to uber, not to mention kicked him out of the nest.
We introduced our daughter to public transportation, which she still uses often. She got her license at 17.5. While she had her permit as soon as she was 16, she didn't seem to do well at driving at that age.

She is now in her late 20s. While she owns an older car, she says that she's not sure she drives enough to justify replacing the car if it failed (about 4K miles a year).
 
I’ve also seen articles that younger generations are having way less sex 😱 than past be generations.

While there has historically been at least SOME overlap between cars and sex ;), I do think there is a broader relationship here.

To the point made above … people are just spending less time with people. They don’t drive. They don’t even go to the store.

The, IMHO, lunacy of young people paying someone to bring you McD’s or your groceries is all part of this shift.

Again though … it’s a slice of the population. My kids both have cars and both worry about their spending.
 
Back
Top Bottom