Why don't kids like cars?

This is depressing:

http://www.tnr.com/blog/the-vine/79419/the-end-automania

Are Americans as car crazy as they were in the '70s? There's growing evidence that young people, for one, are less enamored of driving than their parents were. In 1976, three-quarters of all 17-year-olds had drivers' licenses. By 2008, that was down to 49 percent. And, in a recent survey by Zipcar, the car-sharing company, a full 67 percent of 25- to 34-year-olds said they would prefer to drive less, especially if alternatives were available (Zipcar's not a disinterested party here, but other surveys have yielded similar results). The shift in mood partly reflects worries about the environment and the price of gas. But there also seems to be a technological aspect, too. Once upon a time, newly licensed teens would pile all their friends into their new used car and drive around aimlessly. Nowadays, teens can socialize via Facebook or texting instead—in the Zipcar survey, over half of all young adults said they'd rather chat online than drive to meet their friends.

yeah it is

I've got two who could care less about cars & driving. The 18-yr old we had to coerce into getting his license so he could commute to junior college, but the only other time he'll go anywhere on his on free will, is when he goes to rent movies & games.

Our 17-yr old finally got his license about a month after his b-day - and again, we basically had to make him - but he's yet to go anywhere on his own, nor has he really driven at all since then.

Oh, and we're 20-miles from anything.

The good news is our 13-yr old seems semi-interested. I took her autocrossing a couple years ago & she got to drive a Jr. kart and really enjoyed it. I'm hoping to get her on course again when she gets her permit in a couple years.

I don't get it, especially when they grow up with the culture.

Both my kids are motorheads.

Sometimes I think it might be better if they weren't. Between them, I can't get a spot in my own shop.

Why would you drive somewhere when all the porn in the universe is available on the computer in your bedroom?

Maybe they know that in their lifetimes most of the cheap energy will have been used up and they will be left with suburban sprawl and a lot of walking and/or riding their bikes.

Words to live by: You can't berkeley in the back seat of a facebook.

My 18 year old brother doesn't have his driver's license. He got his learner's about 3 months ago. He's driven exactly twice, once was because I got out of the car and made him. His girlfriend doesn't care to drive. My wife hates driving at all, ever, period.

I had my license at 17, hung out with car guys, worked on cars. All sorts of car stuff. That seems missing these days.

If people choose to stay off the road, I'm okay with that.

I have owned many interesting vehicles in the last 20 years but only with the Lotus has my nephew ever wanted to drive one. I told him that he would have to learn how to drive manual first. How did his parents fail him so badly???

I do the school racing thing where we build single seater cars....

Part of our promotion was hanging out at the long beach grand prix showing off our car.

We had kids climbing in and out of that thing all day. If there has been that significant of a decrease it certainly does not show (or things were just ridiculous "back in the day").

The issue is personal responsibility and ambition.

You don't have to take care of yourself anymore. I always use myself as an example; by the time I turned 15 years old, the money was turned off. I had a roof over my head, was fed, and clothed decently. That is it; I wanted a computer? Buy it yourself. Car? Buy it yourself. Insurance? Ya, we sure as hell aren't paying for that. And the thing is, I never expected my parents to. It was (and always will be) my responsibility to take care of myself.

As well, I'm an ambitious individual. I strive to be better than the mediocrity I see that is society nowadays. A driver's licence does not spell freedom like it once did. And to anyone that bitches about their kids not having a driver's licence; if you ENABLE them to be useless pieces of garbage that have no ambition, YOU are a large part of the problem. I refuse to date, or hang out with anyone that doesn't have a driver's licence as it shows a clear lacking in the "gung ho" department.

I dunno... I'm 20, almost 21. My brother is 23 in December, and my younger brother just turned 18. My younger brother and I are way into cars, my older brother is more into trucks and boats. But he still knows more about them than most people...

my 15 year old cousin gets his learners permit and takes driving school in the spring. his parents have a zx2 with a blown engine that he wants me to help him fix so he can learn how to work on cars.

My kids like cars.

I'm 24 and a card-carrying rotard. However, I am the only on in my family who is a gearhead aside from one of my uncles, who lives in CT and whom I never see. None of my high school buddies were hardcore gearheads (and gravitated towards lifted pick-up trucks rather than cars). No one in my immediate family likes cars or is handy with a wrench. The only person in the house who can drive a stick besides is my dad, and he drives like a granny. I am interested in computers and gadgets and while I'm not an eco-weenie, I do have more than a passing interest in environmental issues. By all accounts, I should never have become a gearhead.

It was actually Gran Turismo 2 and a borrowed copy of Sport Compact Car that got me interested in cars. Funny how that works.

My daughter's 19. She's not an enthusiast, but not one of these kids that would rather not drive at all, either. Ironically enough, she'd rather help drive on a long road trip than drive around town. Her boyfriend is 22 (not really an enthusiast, either, but doesn't hate driving), and she's constantly fighting off the little bitches that target her boyfriend simply because he "doesn't mind" driving. He's a very popular guy, just because he'll drive. His male friends his own age also flock to him like mad because he's not afraid to drive in Atlanta Metro traffic. Last time I had dinner with he & my daughter, he was approached by several of their mutual friends in their fave restaurant asking if he could take them to work the next day. I joked that he buy a Crown Vic and start a Taxi service..and he replied that he really didn't want to be on the road that much.

SWMBO's 26. She enjoys driving, really enjoys how much more composed the Jag is on the curvy roads than the Bravada is, but is "on the fence" about all this car stuff. Still, she won't get on an Interstate highway unless there is no other option to finish a trip in the time frame she wishes to create. She rides backroads all day, but won't touch the highway unless it's absolutely necessary.

I have a hypothesis..traffic congestion. With all the jobs going away in rural communities, more of us live in the cities. And the cities are packed. The kids, as they ride with us, see us cursing, having close calls (or in the case of non-enthusiasts, crashes), getting stuck in traffic jams..and think that driving is nothing but a constant struggle to survive. IMO, a lot of these kids don't see a drivers' licence as "freedom" like I did when I got mine..they see it as a "responsibility". And not in the sense of being a responsible driver, but in the sense of "..yeah, I can't get the job without having a stupid berkeleying car..."

Add to that the "stranger danger" media hype over the last 25yrs (where so many parents were so afraid of child abductions that they took them everywhere in the car, instead of letting them walk or ride their bikes). IMO, they're used to having somebody ride them around. It's a double whammy. They think that driving is a major league hassle (which it can be so much these days), and attempt to avoid it as long as they can.

EricM wrote: My kids like cars.

That is a fun car to drive too. It no longer has much of an interior though.

I have 3 nieces and 2 nephews and the nephews and 1 niece see cars as a means of transportation, not as something to have fun in. 2 of the nieces and 1 nephew now own or want to own SUVs. Not so they can go off-roading, but because they want the safety built into an SUV. 1 niece was put on her granddad's riding mower (not sure if it was the niece's or the granddad's idea) at the age of 10 or 11 and looks forward to getting her first car...if she hasn't gotten it already, but that first car is going to be a Wrangler....or so she STRONGLY hints to her divorced Dad.

A factor, but not THE factor in kids not being the "motorheads" their parents and grandparents were/are, in my view, is that a car or truck is becoming something that takes you to another place while allowing you to "multi-task" during your trip. In other/better words, cars and trucks now allow you to be LESS involved with them....so we are less involved with them.

RexSeven wrote: I'm 24 and a card-carrying rotard. However, I am the only on in my family who is a gearhead aside from one of my uncles, who lives in CT and whom I never see. None of my high school buddies were hardcore gearheads (and gravitated towards lifted pick-up trucks rather than cars). No one in my immediate family likes cars or is handy with a wrench. The only person in the house who can drive a stick besides is my dad, and he drives like a granny. I am interested in computers and gadgets and while I'm not an eco-weenie, I do have more than a passing interest in environmental issues. By all accounts, I should never have become a gearhead. It was actually Gran Turismo 2 and a borrowed copy of Sport Compact Car that got me interested in cars. Funny how that works.

I can sympathize. I come from a family where nobody understood why I was car crazy. I'm sure my parents thought/hoped it was some phase that would pass, but it never did. I had to teach myself how to drive a stick shift, but that wasn't hard because my favorite game at the arcade was always Hard Drivin'.

My daughter, 4, loves cars. She loves working on them (read: sticking screwdrivers in open holes and seeing what sockets fit on what bolts) and loves going for rides. I have posted here before about when she was asking about why I don't shift gears in the Roadmaster but I do in the other cars, and then told me, "When I am older as you, I am going to drive a number stick, not a D stick."

She melted my heart the other day when she said, "Let's take Piata [her name for the Miata] for a drive."

"Sure," I replied. "Where do you want to go?"

"We don't have to go anywhere! Let's just take a drive!"

I think as soon as she can read and learn what parts of a car will cause her serious injury or death, she'll be a fantastic little grease monkey.

You know, I drive for hours on end with no radio on, the windows cracked open, and the sunroof open in our car. The wife has to have the radio on, the AC cranked, and be talking on the cell phone to back out of the driveway. She hates her commute to work. When I go to work (school) with her, I drive, and you know, I enjoy it. I don't like parking lot freeways, but I do have to say TomTom is great at helping me get around that in areas I don't know too well.

I'm not OK with forcing your canoes on people who don't want to buy them.

canoe

Tom, ban this moron

My cousin 18, JUST got her license. My grandma has been driving her to school... :(

my sister 18 has had her license, but has barely driven on the highway, and hasn't driven much at all since going to college.

My brother 16 has his license, but not enough gumption to finish getting his truck running so he can drive it anywhere.