The end of an era for teenage drivers?

 



 

Getting your first vehicle used to be a right of passage – the opportunity to get about without asking for a lift; the chance to explore places beyond your local bus route, and precious moments when you could pull up at college with music blaring out the window.

But it looks like this version of adulthood is becoming less appealing - or at least feasible - for younger drivers. Recent research shows that the number of teenagers with driving licences has dropped by nearly 40% in comparison to two decades ago.

There seem to be different responses to this news: some rejoicing in the fact that this will mean less cars on the road, while others focus with some nostalgia about the end of the era when a car meant your ticket to adulthood.

The costs certainly are prohibitive, from driving lessons through to buying and running a car. And that’s without even factoring the £1,000 + insurance that young drivers need to pay.

This is certainly the perspective that the AA has, with president Edmund King saying: “We know from our own driving school that learning to drive is still seen as a rite of passage for many young people, but that the cost of insurance, in particular, can be a barrier to young people’s driving aspirations.”

A lack of well-paid stable jobs for young people has been cited as one of the reasons that tie in with this financial explanation for the reduction in people taking driving tests.

But the decrease doesn’t seem to be all down to money. Twenty years ago there was no such thing as Facebook or other forms of online ‘socialising’. It’s thought that communicating by smartphone or computer has changed how often people go out – a study done a few years previously showed that young people spend an average extra hour at home in 2014 compared to 2014. Why drive to your friend’s house when you can chat with them from the comfort of your own home?

With the job situation unlikely to suddenly change and different ways of communicating online popping up each day, it looks like the reduction in young people taking driving tests could increase even more - for better or worse.