WASHINGTON - The quest to get a driver's license at 16 -- long an American rite of passage -- is on the wane among the digital generation, which no longer sees the family car as the end-all of social life.
The holdouts include Kat Velkoff, who turned 17 in Chantilly without a license. Focused on tough classes, the debate team, dance and color guard, she turned 18 without taking the wheel. Then 19.
"It just wasn't a priority," said Velkoff, who got her license last year at 20. "It was just never the next thing that needed to get done in my life."
Federal data released Friday underscore a striking national shift: 30.7 percent of 16-year-olds got their licenses in 2008, compared with 44.7 percent in 1988. The difference is even sharper in Virginia and Maryland, state figures show. Numbers from the District, which go back to 2003, show a decline in the past two years.
"Driving is real important to a lot of the kids in the culture, but it is not the central focus like it was 25 years ago," said Tom Pecoraro, owner of I Drive Smart, a Washington area drivers' education program, who added that plenty of his students are older teens. "They have so many other things to do now," he said, and, with years of being shuttled to sports, lessons and play dates, "kids are used to being driven."
A generation consumed by Facebook and text-messaging, by Xbox Live and smartphones, no longer needs to climb into a car to connect with friends. And although many teens are still eager to drive, new laws make getting a license far more time-consuming, requiring as many as 60 supervised driving practice hours with an adult.
Rob Foss, director of the Center for the Study of Young Drivers at the University of North Carolina, and others suggest that these "graduated" state licensing systems -- which have created new requirements for learner's permits, supervised practice hours, night driving and passengers in the car -- are responsible for much of the decline in the number of licensed 16-year-olds. At the same time, drivers' education has been cut back in some public schools, so families must scrounge up money -- often $300 to $600 -- for private driving schools.
Then there is car insurance and gas, expenses that make driving too costly for some families and a stretch for others.
"In this economy, if my daughter were to drive, just the insurance would be $1,200 a year or more, and that's a lot of money," said Elizabeth Walker, the mother of a reluctant driver in Rockville.
Leaving it to parents
There have always been differences between the city and suburban mind-set when it comes to driving, because cities have more public transportation. In suburban and rural areas, it can be trickier to be a later-teen driver.
Not that this has stopped Wylie Conlon, 17.
The senior at Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring has a learner's permit, but the required 60 hours of practice driving toward a driver's license have taken a back seat to his Advanced Placement classes, the rowing team, the literary magazine and Web design projects. "It's hard to spend all that time on driving when I can get places without it," he said.
Conlon said this as his mother, Eva Sullivan Conlon, was driving him to the store to buy supplies for a school project; she ends up taking him places a few times a week. But he also finds his own way, boarding two buses and a train to see his girlfriend in Rockville, for example. In his circle, he adds, "most of my friends don't have driver's licenses, and the few who do end up giving rides to the rest of us."
Natalie Perez-Duel, a 16-year-old junior at Albert Einstein High School in Kensington, has yet to take driving classes and does not know when she will. "It's one more thing to study for, and it's just a hassle," said Perez-Duel, who is already squeezing in AP and International Baccalaureate classes, dance, poms and a school play.
She does not mind rides from her parents. "They have always driven me, and they still do, so it's not that weird," she said.
For parents, the license lag brings mixed reaction. Some are relieved; some mystified.
Continued.
Teens are in no rush to drive - Washington Post- msnbc.com
Originally Posted by SunTzu
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