I Brake for Teenage Drivers

I can deal with the fact that they haven’t created a new, horrible genre of music or a girl’s clothing item that’s appallingly revealing. I can even accept that the most shocking thing they’ve come up with is twerking, which is just a faster version of what Elvis annoyed my grandparents with. But now I’ve found out that teenagers are choosing not to get their driver’s licenses. And I’m worried.

One-third fewer kids are getting driver’s licenses than in 1983. There are two conclusions you can draw from this. One is that this is a generation that is environmentally concerned and economically challenged. The other is correct. They are dead inside.

It’s one thing to live at home after college, but to have so little desire for freedom that you don’t even want the option of driving is a sign of generational depression. I know I sound like my parents telling me to stop playing video games and go outside, but, first of all, they were right. Second, teenagers’ raging hormones should be pushing them out of the house no matter how much fun the Internet is. It’s not healthy to choose porn over actual sex until you’ve been married for 10 years. It’s as if teenagers took the campaign against texting and driving seriously and decided not to drive.

Brandon Schoettle and Michael Sivak of the University of Michigan released a study last month in which they asked teenagers why they weren’t getting licenses. The top excuse for those under 19 was that they were too busy. These are people, remember, who had time to answer a survey from the University of Michigan’s Transportation Research Institute. The second most common reason was “able to get transportation from others.” These “others” are parents. Maybe kids have lost the good sense to be embarrassed by being dropped off by their parents, but parents should be embarrassed to be seen with kids so dorky they don’t want to drive. The environment, by the way, came in ninth. My ninth reason for anything is the environment. I believe I once said, “I’d love to go to your kid’s birthday party, but, you know, the environment.”

Our culture, clearly, is failing to excite kids about driving, despite putting out The Fast and the Furious movies as quickly as possible. So I decided to try to persuade some teens to get licenses. I talked to friends’ children, stepchildren, nieces and nephews and even went so far as to contact kids I didn’t know through Facebook and Twitter, despite not knowing if that was legal and being absolutely sure it was creepy.

All the kids I spoke with had stories that were disturbingly similar: their parents wanted them to get their licenses, but they weren’t interested. Ashley, a 17-year-old senior in Cupertino, Calif., has a core group of four friends, none of whom have licenses, despite being eligible for over a year. By that point in my life, I had already gotten into three accidents, one of which didn’t even involve another car. “Getting a driver’s license is akin to becoming a lackey. ‘Here’s your driver’s license, and with it … responsibility!’ No, thank you,” Ashley told me. “I would much rather nap in the car while my father shuttles me around.” Even Brian Wilson didn’t write a car song that depressing.

If Ashley had a car, she’d be able to leave school for lunch instead of sitting in the library reading TIME. But when I pushed the idea of saving up for a used car, she said, “A car is a hassle. You have to feed it gas and maintain it. It’s like getting yourself in a relationship.” This undercut the next argument I was planning on making, which is that a car would help her get into a relationship.

After a while, I got frustrated with Ashley’s excuses and said, “Don’t you want your freedom?” To which she paused thoughtfully and said, “I guess I could go to Costco. Costco is a great place to hang out because there is free food and you can play hide-and-seek.”

“No,” I said, “I meant to get drunk and have sex.”

“I guess you could do that at Costco,” she said.

I told Ashley I was going to nag her every few days until she got that license and finally experienced the wild freedom of youth, eating microwaved mini hot dogs off toothpicks and purchasing bulk quantities of paper goods. After just a few Facebook messages, she relented. I had the deep, satisfying feeling of a man who throws just one starfish back in the ocean but knows that starfish is almost certainly going to get in an accident that sinks it with waves of debilitating debt.

Yes, I suppose there are worse things than nice, smart, risk-averse, parent-respecting kids like Ashley extending their adolescence. Such as zombies. But I still would rather have reckless teens on the road than kids who cower in fear of the nonvirtual world. Because as I get old and cranky, I’m going to need someone to yell at.