Posted on 11/12/2012 11:49:55 AM PST by Olog-hai
Women have passed men on the nation's roads. More women than men now have driver's licenses, a reversal of a longtime gender gap behind the wheel that transportation researchers say is likely to have safety and economic implications.
If current trends continue, the gap will only widen. The share of teens and young adults of both sexes with driver's licenses is declining, but the decline is greater for young men, according to a study by the University of Michigan's Transportation Research Institute. The study looked at gender trends in driver's licenses between 1995 and 2010. …
Male drivers outnumbered women drivers from the moment the first Ford Model T rolled off the assembly line in 1908, the year the automobile became popular, and through most of the last century. In the 1950s, when only about half of adult women had driver's licenses, jokes about women drivers were a staple of comedians. But the gap gradually closed. By 1995, men with driver's licenses slightly outnumbered women, 89.2 million to 87.4 million. By 2010, 105.7 million women had licenses, compared with 104.3 million men. …
(Excerpt) Read more at bigstory.ap.org ...
And they vote Democrat more then men.
Cue the “Seriously messed-up driving” pix in 3 ... 2 ...
No wonder traffic is so messed up these days.
It is prohibitively expensive for males under 20 to drive due to insurance rates.
Too many young punks wrapping Camaros and Mustangs around trees over the years.
If so, would that be because of their driving records, and if so would this be a case of market forces mitigating a problem?
Well duh.
I find a surprising number of young folks (both sexes) not getting driver’s licenses and we’re not in the city.
50 years ago that was the ticket to freedom, LOL.
Apparently these days instead of “making out” in the car like we did, they send pictures of their equipment over smartphones....
Women should do their tailgating in the parking lots. Also, please stop waving me through the three and four-way stops as though you’re doing me a favor. Your “random acts of kindness” are not appreciated by the vast majority of drivers.
My 24 and 25 year old nephews that liv in Los Angleles do not have drivers licenses. Though the younger one did have one for 2 weeks last year before he hit a tree and sent his girlfreind to the hospital for 2 months while he had a BAC of .21.
I believe state laws are the reason. When I was young, we could apply for a permit at age 15, and then a driver's license at 16. Our friends or parents taught us how to drive. We bought old, used cars for a few hundred dollars.
Nowadays, many states have raised the minimim driving age. In my state, it's age 16 for a permit, and if you want a driver's license at 16, you must pay for a licensed driving instructor to teach you. Add to that the high cost of automobiles and insurance. And the fact that many young men today don't work on their own cars (like they used to), so they don't know how to buy a junker and fix it up. JMHO (as a parent of teens)
You don’t see a lot of young kids saving up for junkers either. Either mom and dad give the kid a car to drive or he/she doesn’t drive.
I know a surpringly large number of 18 year old men without drivers licenses. The problem is the insurance and the difficulty of getting a job. A lot of the jobs which we have associated in the past with teenagers have been taken by immigrants and they stay.
So that is a good deal of the problem. I know very few teenagers who worked this last summer. It was not for lack of trying to find a job.
And they drive directly in front of me , four abreast on the freeway miming into their mirrors that they are doing the speed limit.
Should be easier to find parallel parking spots, no? :-D
You’re correct. It seems like all the hot rodders are old pharts like me in our 50s and 60s. When you go to the drag strip you don’t see many youngsters anymore.
Auto tech is one job that won’t go to China, and would be a fine career for folks that don’t want an academic focused college program.
Not a surprise. There are more women than men.
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