Popular Posts

Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Fewer Teens Are Driving Because They’re Broke

In 2012, 73% of graduating high school seniors nationwide had driver’s licenses according to the Centers for Disease Control. That’s down from 86% in 1996. What’s the reason for the drop? Better public transportation? Helicopter parenting? Stricter testing requirements? No, not that. A new study from the insurance industry-funded Highway Loss Data Institute indicates that it’s because teens don’t have jobs.
Researchers came up with these numbers by comparing teens’ unemployment and driving stats to those of middle-aged adults. Fewer teens who want to work have jobs, and fewer teens have driver’s licenses. Why bother going through the process if you can’t afford to drive and have no job to drive to anyway?

It makes sense: even people whose parents are wonderful enough to buy cars for them need some source of income to put gas in that car. Teen unemployment up by 11 percentage points during the Great Recession period compared to other recent eras.

Or maybe it’s even less complicated than that. The drop in teen drivers also correlates with more widespread Internet usage and mobile phone ownership. Maybe teens who can Facebook with their friends from home have less interest in having aimless face time with them at the mall.

3 comments:

  1. The oil companies have a stranglehold of Americans. Until that ongoing collusion is defeated, things will pretty much stay the same. An old Arco exec said many times to me, that Arco's position with employees and as well, branded station owners, give them enough money (price control of everything involved) so they can live, but Never,.....NEVER let them get up. You are witnessing the very same thing globally today, with the exception that it's been heaped upon the backs of everyone, not just petroleum employees and station owners. We own the oil reserves in this country, not the federal government or any crooked major oil company thief. As my former employer, I worked for a sizeable petroleum distributor), we love a fluctuating market. Why? Because they're slow to lower the price of the product, even though their costs have dropped, but in an instant will raise the price to you, when it's on the rise, equating to huge profits, over all. On top of that most products are purchased in the spring in bulk, known as petroleum futures. Any extra needed during the winter months is sparingly purchased on the spot market, less profit, because it's current pricing. We're screwed because politicians pockets are overloaded with graft and corruption petroleum dollars, which stops any and all investigations into price fixing/collusion.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Not only are they broke, their parents are broke!

    ReplyDelete
  3. GOOD! It means they'll live longer. (and some of the rest of us will also)

    ReplyDelete

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.