American teens seem to be waiting longer than ever to drive.
The share of teenagers with driver’s licenses in the 16-19 age group declined from 64 percent in 1995 to just under 40 percent in 2021, according to the Federal Highway Administration.
The reasons are as complicated as teens. Car costs have surged. Inflation has pushed up the prices of insurance and gas. Ride-hailing and home delivery apps make cars feel less essential. America’s urban centers are growing more crowded and less car-friendly. Teens are socializing more online and less in person. Many young people would rather bike or walk than pollute their planet.
More than anything, perhaps, the decline in teen drivers reflects the impact of “graduated” licensing. Starting around 1996, states enacted new rules tailored to ease novice drivers onto the road. Teen drivers must now spend months gaining skills in low-risk settings before they gain full driving privileges.
Taken together, the economics of finding a car, insuring it and learning to drive it can be daunting, especially for teens from lower-income families.
“Getting a license is an expensive process,” said Becca Weast, a research scientist at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. “Usually, when people delay getting a license, it’s because it’s expensive, and because they don’t have the resources to make it happen.”
The downward trend in driving extends beyond the teen years, spanning Generation Z, born between 1997 and 2012, and reaching into the millennial generation.
Before the turn of the millennium, a driver’s license emblemized American adulthood. More than 90 percent of late-twenty-somethings had one.
No longer. The share of licensed drivers ages 20-24 dipped from 87 percent in 1995 to 81 percent in 2021. In the 25-29 age group, the share of licensed drivers slipped from 95 percent to 88 percent.
To a large extent, researchers say, the decline in young drivers is a familiar story of American haves and have-nots.
“At a population level, certainly, the data suggest that it’s about the resources, money and time and access to a car,” said Johnathon Ehsani, an associate professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
If you’re a teenager with a license and a car, Ehsani said, “basically, that means you’re from a household with more means.”
Ashley Cruz, 21, planned to get her license in high school. “But the problem was that my parents work all the time, so I didn’t really have anybody to practice with,” she said. Then, the pandemic hit.
Cruz commutes by rail and bus from her home in the suburbs to her classes at the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC), where she studies urban planning.
Given her major, Cruz has taken note of who among her friends has a license, and who does not.
“A majority of my friends are in Chicago, and the reason they don’t have a driver’s license is they have public transportation at their disposal,” she said.
Out in the car-intensive suburbs, getting a license hinges on “the privilege of having your parents around,” she said. Friends with stay-at-home parents got a license at 16. Latchkey kids did not.
Zachary Grand, another UIC student, got his license at 17 in California. “Coming to Chicago,” he said, “it kind of blows my mind how many people didn’t even learn to drive.”
Grand, now 29, explained the pervasive mindset among his Chicago friends: “A bad car that you used to be able to buy for, like, a thousand dollars is now about $5,000, which is crazy. It just adds to a lot of other costs: insurance, gas.”
And the alternatives are cheaper. “You can do anything from your phone,” he said. “Call an Uber if you really need to, take a train if you want to, or the bus, or just walk.”
American car culture peaked “in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s,” said Tony Dutzik, a senior policy analyst at Frontier Group who studies driving trends.
In the years since, urbanization, gridlock and other factors have seeded a gradual decline in young Americans seeking a license.
“Increasingly, this country is moving more and more into urban areas where it’s perfectly easy to get around without a car,” said Robert Foss, director emeritus of the Center for the Study of Young Drivers at the University of North Carolina.
The downward trend accelerated after 1995, with the introduction of the graduated license.
“In many states, it’s a much longer process,” Dutzik said. New drivers typically wait many months to gain full privileges. “There are limitations on your ability to drive at night, your ability to carry passengers, which can last, in some cases, until you’re 17 or 18.”
Car crashes involving teens dropped dramatically under the new rules. But the graduated license posed new challenges for would-be drivers of limited means.
“A teenager with a part-time job would be really hard-pressed to pay for their own driver’s education,” Weast said. “And then, on top of that, they would have to pay for the testing, which varies by state. And then they would have to have a car. What person making minimum wage can afford to have any car right now?”
Some scholars believe the federal data overstates the decline in teen driving, partly because of the new license programs. In some states, for example, a driver with a provisional license isn’t counted as a licensed driver, Foss said.
Foss and other researchers have found a host of other problems with federal data on driver’s licenses, a source of ongoing scholarly debate. But other data sources show the same downward trend.
The Great Recession of the late 2000s left many young millennials jobless, further eroding the share of licensed drivers. Around the same time, Uber arrived, hailing a new era of urban mobility for the carless.
In the years since, the social lives of teens have migrated online. Young Americans spend a lot less time gathering with friends in person, a shift away from car travel.
Environmental concerns have spiked among millennials and Generation Z. Millennials drove the carless trend. New research suggests the generation continues to drive less than either Generation X or baby boomers, even as they approach midlife.
It’s too soon to tell whether Generation Z will follow suit. As Americans age and contemplate marriage and parenthood, a carless existence becomes progressively harder to sustain.
“Gen Z is very environmentally conscious,” said Kate Lowe, an associate professor of urban planning and policy at UIC. But, she added, “a lot of people change their transportation patterns when they have kids.”