Archived as originally published. References reflect the time this column was written.
Sociologists and other folks like that who assign names to all the different generations and study their similarities and contrasts have shared some stunning statistics about today’s teenagers. They are telling us that most young people who reach the legal driving age these days are not in any rush to obtain a driver’s license. That is mind-boggling for all of us who counted down the days to the birthday when we were old enough to do that. I remember getting my license the day I turned 15, the legal age for driving back then. My kids and grandkids were also lined up at the motor vehicle office on the first day they were eligible to get a driver’s license. Last year, only about 25 percent of 16-year-olds had a driver’s license, and that number continues to decline. More than 50 percent of driving age teens had licenses 35 years ago, and the percentage was even higher during the decades before that. If anything, the proportion of high school kids with licenses should be steadily increasing since most schools have driver’s education classes and cars are getting easier to drive. I’m pretty sure they didn’t have a driver’s education course at Springhill when I was growing up. If we had one, I missed it. The closest I ever came to a driving lesson in school was when Buddy Bonnette, one of our coaches, sent me on an errand in his car. My dad had let me drive our Plymouth with the automatic transmission a few times, but Coach Bonnette’s Ford had a standard shift. When he gave me his car keys that day, I told him I couldn’t operate a stick shift. He told me to “figure it out.” Several months before I was old enough to get a license, my dad had a painful kidney stone attack. Our family doctor was out of town, and he advised us by phone to get my dad to a doctor in Shreveport 60 miles away. My mother did not drive at night or out of town, so she directed me to drive. I might have had three or four hours of driving experience, but I somehow got us there and back. When I finally reached the age that I could get a license, the guy giving the test threw me a curve by taking me to an area in front of the funeral home that had parallel parking. All the other streets in Springhill had simple slanted parking spaces that didn’t require all the tactics and maneuvering of getting between two vehicles parked in parallel spaces. After backing up and going forward a dozen times or so, I managed to get at least the back end of the car in the parking space. I still parallel park that way. Most young folks now who go to get a driver’s license have the advantage of vehicles that almost park themselves. In fact, some of them advertise that they do park themselves. They have back up cameras, beepers that go off if you get too close to a car in front or back of you and all that other stuff. Even the worst drivers can get into those tight parallel parking spaces. My older son started begging me two years before he could get a license to teach him to drive. The first time I let him get behind the wheel, he ran into one of brick pillars that held up the carport. When my twin grandchildren visited during their teenage years, they always wanted me to let them drive. Evan did okay, but he got out and walked home the day Amanda ran off the road and stopped just before she hit a pine tree. Experts say there are several reasons teenagers are not in a hurry to learn to drive now. For one, they have access to transportation like Uber and Lyft. They also communicate with friends on cell phones and social media instead of going places with them in cars. Sociologists say Generation Z kids—that’s what they call young folks today—spend an average of three hours a day online instead of riding around with friends. I’m convinced that if today’s teenagers had ever dragged Main Street in Springhill with the pretty girls that rode around with us or sat in the car with them at the Dothl House having a hamburger and milkshake, they would get their license the day they got old enough.
REPRINTED FROM THE NATCHITOCHES TIMES