Gen Z Is Choosing Not to Drive

[ZLoth]

From Newsweek:

Gen Z Is Choosing Not to Drive

Gen Z, the generation born after 1997, appears to be less enamored by the prospect of driving than previous generations, according to consulting firm McKinsey, with potential implications for the future of the car industry.

This group of Americans is less likely to have a license than its older counterparts at the same age. McKinsey points out that in 1997, 43 percent of 16-year-olds and 62 percent of 17-year-olds held a license. But those numbers have dropped substantially, and by 2020, only 25 percent of 16-year-olds and 45 percent of 17-year-olds have a driver's license, the consulting firm said citing data from the U.S. Federal Highway Administration.

FULL ARTICLE HERE

I wonder how much is due to high insurance costs or the additional training and restrictions on new drivers aged 16-17 verses new drives 18 and older.

[jeffandnicole]

From Newsweek:

Gen Z Is Choosing Not to Drive

Gen Z, the generation born after 1997, appears to be less enamored by the prospect of driving than previous generations, according to consulting firm McKinsey, with potential implications for the future of the car industry.

This group of Americans is less likely to have a license than its older counterparts at the same age. McKinsey points out that in 1997, 43 percent of 16-year-olds and 62 percent of 17-year-olds held a license. But those numbers have dropped substantially, and by 2020, only 25 percent of 16-year-olds and 45 percent of 17-year-olds have a driver's license, the consulting firm said citing data from the U.S. Federal Highway Administration.

FULL ARTICLE HERE

I wonder how much is due to high insurance costs or the additional training and restrictions on new drivers aged 16-17 verses new drives 18 and older.

Also...

Uber and other rideshares didn't exist in 1997.

Older teens want something?  Order via Amazon.  Or UberEats.  Options that also didn't exist in 1997.

Parents, who have coddled their kids to the point where kids have no clue what unstructured playtime is, have never ridden a bike around the block on their own and are called upon for their every need, continue to drive them around.

Used car prices are much higher.

[on_wisconsin]

Ten years ago it was "Millennials are choosing not to drive"...

[Ted$8roadFan]

They've also likely to have bought into the idea that driverless cars are just around the corner and will negate the need to drive at all.

[mgk920]

Also, more modern the car, the less 'tinkerable' it is.  It is much less easy to fix and modify by themselves.  Decades ago, modifying an older car and 'cruising' it down the downtown main street here in Appleton (College Ave) was a generations old, time honored tradition, a rite of passage.  Now, younger males are much more enamored with interactive on-line video games and the like and much less with cars.  It is a societal thing.

Mike

[ZLoth]

Also...

Uber and other rideshares didn't exist in 1997.

Older teens want something?  Order via Amazon.  Or UberEats.  Options that also didn't exist in 1997.

Parents, who have coddled their kids to the point where kids have no clue what unstructured playtime is, have never ridden a bike around the block on their own and are called upon for their every need, continue to drive them around.

Used car prices are much higher.

I would agree that the shopping mall and the movies don't hold quite the attractions to kids now verses when I was growing up in the 1980s. There is also somewhat less of a trust of the outside world compared to earlier years. Even then, my mother would insist on driving me to/from the shopping mall verses allowing me to walk to Sunrise Mall because it was along the very busy Sunrise Blvd. Now, if it was dark, rainy, and/or very cold, I can understand. If I planned it right, I could take the bus home. But, there is nothing wrong with walking or biking.

Having said that, the reality check may be cashed when they get a job. Being the ones with the least seniority, they usually get the worst shifts including working weekend shift. When they get the schedule and see that they are scheduled to begin at 5 AM, but the earliest they can get there (with transit) is 6:30 AM and protest, their supervisor will look at them and state, "How is that my problem? You need this job more than I need you."

Then, of course, you point to the "helicopter parents" who, being ever fearful, won't allow the kids to walk the neighborhood or bike in the streets unsupervised or without checking in every ten minutes.

[Max Rockatansky]

I always wanted to drive when I was a kid.  Even if I didn't want to, it wasn't going to be something my parents were going to give me an option on passing.  Not wanting to drive as an adult to me feels alien as it is something I've always enjoyed.  Then again I've been surprised by how many people in the road community in general don't like driving. 

[kalvado]

I always wanted to drive when I was a kid.  Even if I didn't want to, it wasn't going to be something my parents were going to give me an option on passing.  Not wanting to drive as an adult to me feels alien as it is something I've always enjoyed.  Then again I've been surprised by how many people in the road community in general don't like driving.

Driving is not really a goal by itself for most people, more like a tool to achieve certain goals.
If life can be organized without driving - which is more plausible in larger cities, and even in smaller ones with delivery and remote work, then why should they drive?

[tmoore952]

My 16 yo son probably will want to learn.
He was not able to get a summer job last year, and we think part of the reason was that he was not able to transport himself very easily.

[Max Rockatansky]

I always wanted to drive when I was a kid.  Even if I didn't want to, it wasn't going to be something my parents were going to give me an option on passing.  Not wanting to drive as an adult to me feels alien as it is something I've always enjoyed.  Then again I've been surprised by how many people in the road community in general don't like driving.

Driving is not really a goal by itself for most people, more like a tool to achieve certain goals.
If life can be organized without driving - which is more plausible in larger cities, and even in smaller ones with delivery and remote work, then why should they drive?

Not wanting freedom of movement and lacking a desire to leave immediate surrounding are things I seemingly cannot understand. 

[formulanone]

Ten years ago it was "Millennials are choosing not to drive"...

10-15 years from now, Generation Alpha* Chooses not to Drive...

* how dare those 12 year-olds not get jobs and create a better generational name for themselves!

...'cruising' it down the downtown main street here in Appleton (College Ave) was a generations old, time honored tradition, a rite of passage

Yeah, but was it merely 3-5 generations-old? The secondhand vehicle market wasn't a financially approachable option for most families, until post-WWII. Car culture forgets that there's lots of people who didn't really care that much or probably didn't have enough spare change to waste after owning a single vehicle in the household. 

Before that, someone well-to-do might take their horse-and-carriage out for a trot, but towns and cities were smaller, thus it was statistically a smaller percentage performing that tradition or rite-of-passage. Someone out the countryside wasn't as likely to take much of a day to get into town for pleasure's sake, unless they had lots of idle time.

My daughter has enjoyed learning how to drive stick but I'm not sure that she'd really want to go on a all-day drive for the heck of it just yet (if at all).

[kalvado]

I always wanted to drive when I was a kid.  Even if I didn't want to, it wasn't going to be something my parents were going to give me an option on passing.  Not wanting to drive as an adult to me feels alien as it is something I've always enjoyed.  Then again I've been surprised by how many people in the road community in general don't like driving.

Driving is not really a goal by itself for most people, more like a tool to achieve certain goals.
If life can be organized without driving - which is more plausible in larger cities, and even in smaller ones with delivery and remote work, then why should they drive?

Not wanting freedom of movement and lacking a desire to leave immediate surrounding are things I seemingly cannot understand.

Flying and transfer to a city center is definitely an option to see a lot of populated places.
Someone can reasonably argue that limiting travel to driving radius is equally limiting for many people (not necessarily on this site, though)

[Max Rockatansky]

I always wanted to drive when I was a kid.  Even if I didn't want to, it wasn't going to be something my parents were going to give me an option on passing.  Not wanting to drive as an adult to me feels alien as it is something I've always enjoyed.  Then again I've been surprised by how many people in the road community in general don't like driving.

Driving is not really a goal by itself for most people, more like a tool to achieve certain goals.
If life can be organized without driving - which is more plausible in larger cities, and even in smaller ones with delivery and remote work, then why should they drive?

Not wanting freedom of movement and lacking a desire to leave immediate surrounding are things I seemingly cannot understand.

Flying and transfer to a city center is definitely an option to see a lot of populated places.
Someone can reasonably argue that limiting travel to driving radius is equally limiting for many people (not necessarily on this site, though)

Thing is though, if you control the vehicle/car the only obstacle from getting where you want to go is you.  Once you start stacking more people and transportation services to get you where you want to go the chances of failure becomes far more likely. 

[Rothman]

My Gen Z son drives.  Has one of our cars while he finishes up college.

My Gen Z daughter (gainfully employed) does not drive, but lives in a big city where she doesn't have to.  She accepts the limited broader mobility as a result, although she hops on trains and planes to get out further.

[J N Winkler]

I learned to drive at age 17, which was unusually late for the time--many of my peers started learning at age 14.  Quite a few of them were lousy drivers because their parents treated driving (one of the most complex tasks a human will ever perform in terms of motor coordination and cognitive processing) as something to be picked up through osmosis or through a driver's-education course where they might get at most three 30-minute sessions of road time, each involving just 10 minutes behind the wheel.  Enough states have at minimum a 50-hour logbook requirement that it is harder to get away with that slapdash approach, at least at younger ages where graduated licensing systems are more stringent.

There are metro areas, even in the US, where I believe car ownership is often an expensive mistake.  Nevertheless, driving is a useful skill to have in one's arsenal.  I think members of Generation Z are less likely to have it by age 18 not just because of graduated licensing and the various factors others have mentioned, but also because fewer households are likely to have the free disposable income to pay for it.

[Max Rockatansky]

Perhaps one of the largest generational changes is the expectation that children will drive.  My dad started teaching me when I was nine on the family property.  It wasn't uncommon for me to drive and do errands for my parents so long as I stuck to local roads around when I was eleven/twelve.  I was told that my services would be required when I was sixteen.  I had to shuttle my younger sister to her school activities and run increasingly more complex errands.  I'm sure in retrospect all this saved my parents a lot of hassle that they would have otherwise had to dealt with. 

[SP Cook]

The correct headline is:

Some in Gen Z Is Choosing Not to Drive

Like all such sweeping pronouncements, taking a statistical change from one "generation" to another and then extrapolating this as "Generation whatever" does this or that, is just poor journalism. 

And, yes, as others above have pointed out, these "this kids today, they don't want a car" stories have been out for a very long time.

[Rothman]

Perhaps one of the largest generational changes is the expectation that children will drive.  My dad started teaching me when I was nine on the family property.  It wasn't uncommon for me to drive and do errands for my parents so long as I stuck to local roads around when I was eleven/twelve.  I was told that my services would be required when I was sixteen.  I had to shuttle my younger sister to her school activities and run increasingly more complex errands.  I'm sure in retrospect all this saved my parents a lot of hassle that they would have otherwise had to dealt with.

Heh.  Smalltownism, it sounds like. Makes one wonder what they were doing while the kids were away.

[Max Rockatansky]

Perhaps one of the largest generational changes is the expectation that children will drive.  My dad started teaching me when I was nine on the family property.  It wasn't uncommon for me to drive and do errands for my parents so long as I stuck to local roads around when I was eleven/twelve.  I was told that my services would be required when I was sixteen.  I had to shuttle my younger sister to her school activities and run increasingly more complex errands.  I'm sure in retrospect all this saved my parents a lot of hassle that they would have otherwise had to dealt with.

Heh.  Smalltownism, it sounds like. Makes one wonder what they were doing while the kids were away.

Eh, only for six years that I lived in New Milford, Connecticut.  I lived my first seven years in Metro Detroit, I spent 8th-12th grade in Lansing and Chicago.  Similarly, my older brother was equipped with a moped to go do things at a similar age in Metro Detroit during the 1980s.  A Wayne County Sheriff gave my dad a stern talking to about letting my brother ride his moped unlicensed in Detroit circa 1986.   

As for what my parents were doing in their free time who's to say?  I'm sure anyone who has shuffled kids out of the door can probably make some assumptions and likely not be far off the mark. 

[Scott5114]

When they get the schedule and see that they are scheduled to begin at 5 AM, but the earliest they can get there (with transit) is 6:30 AM and protest, their supervisor will look at them and state, "How is that my problem? You need this job more than I need you."

And then when the employee quits and gets a job that starts at 7 (because the unemployment rate is so low the employee actually doesn't need that job more than the employer needs employees) they will whine to anyone that listens that nobody wants to work anymore...

[Bruce]

When we build an utterly depressing outside for teenagers and young adults, it's no wonder they choose to socialize virtually and not in the dwindling number of third places. On top of that, the cost of a used car and its maintenance makes it hard to justify if you live in an area with half-decent alternative options. I myself am looking forward to driving far less once a big transit expansion is completed later this year.

[Max Rockatansky]

When we build an utterly depressing outside for teenagers and young adults, it's no wonder they choose to socialize virtually and not in the dwindling number of third places. On top of that, the cost of a used car and its maintenance makes it hard to justify if you live in an area with half-decent alternative options. I myself am looking forward to driving far less once a big transit expansion is completed later this year.

What is it exactly that is depressing outside in Washington State?  When I was in high school in Michigan, I would have killed to have outdoor recreational activities that are available in Washington State.  A huge contributing reason I moved to Arizona a week out of high school was the times I spent with my older brother while on vacation out there circa 1996-2000.

[Bruce]

When we build an utterly depressing outside for teenagers and young adults, it's no wonder they choose to socialize virtually and not in the dwindling number of third places. On top of that, the cost of a used car and its maintenance makes it hard to justify if you live in an area with half-decent alternative options. I myself am looking forward to driving far less once a big transit expansion is completed later this year.

What is it exactly that is depressing outside in Washington State?  When I was in high school in Michigan, I would have killed to have outdoor recreational activities that are available in Washington State.  A huge contributing reason I moved to Arizona a week out of high school was the times I spent with my older brother while on vacation out there circa 1996-2000.

The suburbs. The lack of walkable places is still a huge issue here and only getting worse as traditional third places are ripped out.

The recreational opportunities all require a vehicle and the ability to jockey for very limited parking on weekends. The exception is the Trailhead Direct bus, which runs on weekends to already overfull trails, so they aren't enjoyable.

[kalvado]

When we build an utterly depressing outside for teenagers and young adults, it's no wonder they choose to socialize virtually and not in the dwindling number of third places. On top of that, the cost of a used car and its maintenance makes it hard to justify if you live in an area with half-decent alternative options. I myself am looking forward to driving far less once a big transit expansion is completed later this year.

What is it exactly that is depressing outside in Washington State?  When I was in high school in Michigan, I would have killed to have outdoor recreational activities that are available in Washington State.  A huge contributing reason I moved to Arizona a week out of high school was the times I spent with my older brother while on vacation out there circa 1996-2000.

The suburbs. The lack of walkable places is still a huge issue here and only getting worse as traditional third places are ripped out.

The recreational opportunities all require a vehicle and the ability to jockey for very limited parking on weekends. The exception is the Trailhead Direct bus, which runs on weekends to already overfull trails, so they aren't enjoyable.

I would say there is a contradiction here. You want  things to be within the walking range, presumably in high density areas - yet not crowded? Is that possible?

[Bruce]

When we build an utterly depressing outside for teenagers and young adults, it's no wonder they choose to socialize virtually and not in the dwindling number of third places. On top of that, the cost of a used car and its maintenance makes it hard to justify if you live in an area with half-decent alternative options. I myself am looking forward to driving far less once a big transit expansion is completed later this year.

What is it exactly that is depressing outside in Washington State?  When I was in high school in Michigan, I would have killed to have outdoor recreational activities that are available in Washington State.  A huge contributing reason I moved to Arizona a week out of high school was the times I spent with my older brother while on vacation out there circa 1996-2000.

The suburbs. The lack of walkable places is still a huge issue here and only getting worse as traditional third places are ripped out.

The recreational opportunities all require a vehicle and the ability to jockey for very limited parking on weekends. The exception is the Trailhead Direct bus, which runs on weekends to already overfull trails, so they aren't enjoyable.

I would say there is a contradiction here. You want  things to be within the walking range, presumably in high density areas - yet not crowded? Is that possible?

More options means that people can be a bit more dispersed. Note that Seattle's popular neighborhoods are far enough apart that one doesn't totally overcrowd on a normal weekend (events excluded), while a centralized suburban destination like a shopping mall would be very hard to reach by most modes.