Putting it off

During the year or so before I turned 16, my fancy turned, not-so-lightly, to thoughts of -- getting my drivers license!

I remember, for some reason, walking home from school when I was about 14 or 15, and looking at a street I was crossing in a new way.  Suddenly, it was no longer just a hunk of concrete.  It was a conduit to every street, road, and highway in North America.  If you had a car -- or access to a car -- the continent was yours. 

Once you had a drivers license.  Within a day of turning 16, I was at the county courthouse taking the written portion of the exam.  Score: 100 percent.  Yay!  Within another week or so, I was sitting in the family car, an officer in the passenger seat, taking the driving portion of the test.

And failing it.  Parallel parking did me in.  I was devastated.  How could I -- whose self image was perfection itself -- have failed something so basic?  My self-confidence was momentarily shattered. But a few weeks later, I girded up my loins and returned to the scene of the crime.  I took, and passed, my second try at the test.

I recall vividly the highs and lows of my zealous drive to get my license -- a zeal shared by virtually every one of my contemporaries -- because of recent stories suggesting that getting a license is no longer that big a deal for kids as they turn sixteen.  Certainly not getting it right at sixteen.  And some are even put off by the whole idea of driving.

Heresy!

A recent study showed that in 1983, nearly 50 percent of American 16-year-olds had their license.  By 2014, that percentage had fallen to about 25 percent.

Teenagers offer a number of reasons for the change, a change that they don't consider particularly surprising or interesting.  The Seattle Times did an informal survey a few months ago, asking teenagers about their lack of interest in driving.  Their responses?

•   The teenager didn't have his or her own car.
•   Public transportation got them anywhere they wanted to go.
•   Gas and other costs of driving were too expensive.
•   Drivers education is today a prerequisite for obtaining a license before the age of 18, and -- unlike for my generation -- is rarely provided by public schools.  The course typically costs about $500.
•   Thirty-five percent of those surveyed who had not obtained a license said they "just didn't get around to it."

The Detroit Free Press, discussing the same issue, quoted a driving instructor, Patrick Klubben:

He said the newer generation’s “mentality is a little different.”
“Some don’t want that responsibility and avoid it,” he said of driving.
Cultural norms around parenting have changed, too. Klubben said parents are now more willing to chauffeur their teens. If someone is willing to drive you around, why go through the trouble and expense of getting licensed?

I mull these factors -- these excuses -- over.  Most of them applied to some extent when I was a kid.  We -- I -- brushed them aside as inconsequential.  We needed a license with every fiber of our being.  We'd decide what we were going to drive and how we would pay for it afterwards.

The conclusion I draw is that, as Klubben notes, today's mentality -- today's teen's psychology -- is different.  We needed a drivers license because we needed to grow up, and in our world we had a limited number of ways to demonstrate our progress toward that goal.  Being able to drive was one of the great societal markers on the road to adulthood.  Today's teens may (or may not) have that same urgency for adulthood, but if they do they have other ways of achieving it. 

And besides.  If by the time you were eleven years old, you had already conquered the world repeatedly on your computer, and had wiped out impressive quantities of bizarre aliens, and if you had all of the world's knowledge at your fingertips on-line, what excitement would there be in receiving permission drive a four-wheel automobile?   Driving becomes a totally utilitarian skill that may or may not be of use to you "in real life."

You really need to go somewhere in town?  Don't you have an Uber app on your phone?  You need to travel across country?  Really?  Like that guy Jack Kerouac?  Why not just travel "virtually"?  It's safer, and cleaner, and a heck of a lot easier.  A computer never gets flat tires.

Damn kids!  They play their music too loud, too!