Over the winter break, my teenage children observed, based on their friends and acquaintances, that young adults are much less eager to get their driver's licenses than they once were, and that in general fewer young people have them. I was skeptical at first, but it turns out they're right. In 1983, 92 percent of Americans aged 20 to 24 had a driver's license. In 2014, just 77 percent did. Were it not for that decline, 3.5 million more young people would be drivers today.
The change is occurring across young age categories, with sharp drops among teenagers. The share of 17-year-olds with driver's licenses, for example, was down to 45 percent in 2014, from 55 percent in 2001. And the rates are falling for young men and young women alike.
Total vehicle kilometers driven by young drivers have plummeted, not only because a smaller share of them are driving but also because kilometers per young driver have also declined. In 1990, each driver aged 16 to 19 drove an average of almost 13,700 km per year. In 2009, it was less than10,500. Thanks to this and to safer cars, fatal car accidents involving teenagers are falling sharply, even though they remain the leading source of death in that age category. And fewer drivers also generally means less greenhouse gas emissions.