“The percentage of 16-to-24-year-olds with a driver’s license has dropped sharply since 1997, and is now below 70% for the first time since 1963. “Millennials are demonstrating significantly different lifestyle and transportation preferences than older generations,” declared a recent report by the U.S. Public Interest Group. Overall, it concluded, “the driving boom is over.”
With gas at $4/gallon in a lot of places, nobody is going anywhere they don’t have to.
When told about a job at such and such a place, they complain they don't have cars or drivers licenses. When told to go out and get a drivers license, they come up with some other excuse..."I ain't got no money!"
I've got another cousin, brother to the first cousin. As a kid he lived across the road from where my first cousin lives. In Jr Hi and HS he worked for a farmer about 4 miles away. In HS he worked there 5-6 days a week. He rode his bike there every day, rain, snow or nice. That job paid for his first car.
His daughter is in HS now. She has an eye for having nice things. She's got a drivers license and is out there working. She has her eyes set on things and is going after them.
The first 2 boys...the only things they have their eyes on are video games and tv.
Unemployment might be high right now, but for the ones THAT REALLY WANT to work, they'll find jobs, even if its not exactly what they want to do. Those who WANT to work, view a car as a necessity (unless they have easy access to public transportation).
For the others, a car is viewed as a liability, and an expense. If one doesn't have a car, there is less need to have a job.
30 years ago, a young person having a car was seen as freedom. Freedom to go where you want, when you want. Today, that freedom is seen as a chore, as responsibility. Something to be shunned.
There are more illegal aliens in this country than I thought.....
pretty much the whole story ~
Naturally we'd assume a report on private automobiles by a Ralph Nader affiliated bunch would be completely objective...
Top five reasons the “millenials” aren’t interested in owning cars:
1. Car insurance premiums
2. Gas prices
3. Car prices
4. No more true “muscle cars”, or cars that home mechanics can work on unless they have years of technical training in computer diagnostics.
5. A greatly expanded - - and broke - - Democrat moocher base
For that generation, driving is not as necessary. More people live in urban cores or suburbs with mass transit, where a car isn’t necessary. They can take classes online or borrow a car. Owning their own car is less necessary than for prior generations.