Source https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinformation/statistics.cfm
Tools: requests, beautiful soup and matplotlib

If the DOT site was more standardized I would’ve shown more age groups

Uber and Lyft and traffic is a big factor for the decline.

Uber and Lyft have only been around since the mid 2010s. So that can’t explain it.

my guess is population decline; fewer babies born = fewer drivers licenses issued

Your explanation is that there are fewer teen parents?

This is percentage, not population

oops yup i def misread the chart

Fewer teen parents is a fact thanks to IUDs and other long acting reversible birth control. Having a baby means you need to get to doctor’s appointments, day care, work, school & etc. Driving makes all those things easier so I buy that explanation on part of the decline.

in my country, is cheaper to pay the ticket for no license twice than having a license

How can it drop 25% in one year?

It is known that Millennials hate driving. Half of my younger peers growing up didn't even bother. They just made their parents or boyfriends drive them around. This is now me, driving my SO around.

Good question. That’s the data they have. My guess is their reporting methodology changed.

I didn’t start driving till I had to for work.

I’m guessing this is “percent of eligible teens.” If it was all teens, the number would likely be much lower. Example, in California with the driving age at 16, even if 100% of people got it on their 16th birthday, that would still only be ~57% of all teens (no one aged 13-15 would have it).

That’s wild, it’s like $40 total in my state to get a license and I’d assume a ticket for driving without one is at least $150. I used to drive before I had a license though lol. But getting caught also meant not being able to get a license until 18, which is the real dissuasion from doing it more

I am guessing the spike in 2020-2021 ish was due to many states allowing teens to get their licenses without taking the road test.

I'm guessing it's because that's about the time a lot of states started implementing restrictions on newly licensed drivers especially around passengers allowed in the vehicle. Makes it a lot less appealing if you can't drive your friends around.

covid probably, a lot of kids my age could hardly get in to test for the license for over a year

I am so jealous. In my country it costs 2.000-3.000 dollars to get a driver's license

[removed]

It's likely because people are moving to urban areas, where driving isn't as necessary, in mass. Living in a rural area you really have no choice but to drive if you want to do anything other than sit at home with your parents everyday. And rural population is dropping.

My younger sister just got her license like a year ago at 28 and she talks about other people being spoiled.

This reminds me of malls trying to chase away teenagers. Well, it worked. The teenagers never liked malls much as a result and kept that world view as they got older.

A lot of older people will be shocked as younger Americans vote against things that make life easier for people who drive. Making driving unattractive for young people was the explicit goal though.

Back in my day it was mayhem. Surprised I’m still alive.

Honestly I think it's a blessing that these types of unintended long term consequences are happening.

I receive about R$1400 monthly, a license is R$2600, i also have bills and food, i dont have the money and even if i had, id not have the license, i drive 2 times a month and thats it

Are you a Millennial?

In which country do you live?

In which country do you live?

Why do you think so?

Because I'm these examples the unintended consequences are that you get younger generations who are more supportive of policies like increased public transportation options and sustainable development.

I obviously don't think that the two examples mentioned here are the sole driver of these shifts in viewpoints, but they are certainly part of the soup.

[deleted]

I loathe driving, avoid it whenever I can. Didn't buy my first car until I was 30 and really only because we were having a kid.

I think you mean 25 Percentage points.

Also possibly COVID and fear of transit.

How? Driver’s license=freedom. How would you choose not to get one?

This is so weird to me. When I was a kid, everyone got a license, even if they didn’t have a car. It was just part of growing up. But most of us worked to get cars. I could see not doing that in a major city, but still. A license.

It's expensive in the US too if you don't have someone to teach you and thus have to rely on lessons.

I wonder how much of this is because of Uber.

That’s a red flag. Your partner could lacks a maturity issue. I hate driving but life basically demand you get one if you don’t want to inconvenience other people. Your SO took the later and said they don’t care about inconveniencing anyone. How long will you allow them to escape their responsibility?

That makes sense, I guess.

I got my license in 1992. Other than my license saying "UNDER 21", it wasn't different from anyone else's license. I had bought my car a few months earlier, and was picking up friends to go to the mall within a half hour of getting home from taking the test on my 16th birthday.

But by the time my brother got his license in 95 or 96, there were all sorts of restrictions on when you could drive and how many passengers you could have. I think for the first year, you could only have one person under 18, and only until midnight. Come to think of it, I don't think he bought a car until he needed one to commute to college.

My first serious girlfriend in high school never got her license until well into college. I drove her everywhere for most of high school and then when we split she was in college and really didn’t need to drive.

Yeah, same, I spent about 3500, exam included

I lived in a large city with good public transport and had a student card for it (free during the week, reduced price on the weekend). I had a bike.

Parking for cars is a nightmare and very expensive here. Why would I have gotten my license before I needed it for work?

I think technology has a lot to do with it. Younger generations don't feel the need to get out of the house and socialize as much because they have all the social attention they need on their phone.

I’m impressed if it is. I can afford a car better than an uber driving me around, but I know it’s easier to drop a 20 for a ride than 4,000 for a first car or something. I haven’t looked at what junkers cost today, but I know prices have been up on used cars since covid.

I would love to have another y-axis with the cost of insurance

Yeah my best friend literally just bummed rides off us till he came back from college.

Naw. She's 40. Some people just don't have reflexes for driving and know it. Some people do it anyway and those are the people you see who get 30 fender benders. Also by not driving she saves us probably 10 grand a year in insurance, gas, and auto maintenance. We live in a small town anyway, so driving is pretty much unimportant.

My dad did say that I would be a taxi for the rest of my life when I told him she didn't drive, but also he married someone 30 years younger than him to be his nurse maid for the rest of his life, so he's a bit of a hypocrite.

I’m pretty sure several states raised the age to get a driver’s license in the 90’s.

This shows that gen z dropped off rapidly from driving.