Junior Lily Steinmetz turned 16 in August but hasn’t gotten her driver’s license or learner’s permit. “I feel like I always have to rely on my parents or my friends to drive me places, or I have to walk,” she said. Steinmetz, who plans to get her license over the summer, is not alone. Only a quarter of 16-year-olds have their driver’s licenses, a 23% drop since 2000.
Though some are forgoing licensure altogether, most teens are like Steinmetz: they recognize the value of driving but find that school, costs, and the difficulty of the license process get in the way. “I’ve had a lot of work and I’ve been putting it off because I know it’s going to take me a while,” she said.
Getting a license is intentionally difficult: time and again, studies have shown that adolescents are far more likely to get into car accidents than other drivers. In response, states have adopted Graduated Driver’s License systems that require learner’s permits, supervised practice, and provisional licenses. The specifics vary from state to state.
“Americans have always had a tolerant view of young people and driving,” Gary Cross, an emeritus professor of modern history at Penn State and author of a book about patterns in teen driving, said. “But we don’t need to have teenagers driving at the age of 16 anymore, and we’re beginning to adopt a pattern that’s much closer to the Europeans and others, which is not having driver’s licenses until 18.”
“The DMV process and schoolwork have made getting my license hard,” junior Kaia Moore, who has had her learner’s permit since January 2024, said. “I waited too long to take my license test after getting my permit, so it expired and I had to renew it.”
“There’s definitely a lot of barriers to figuring out how to deal with the DMV,” junior Katie Cueva, who has her license, said. “Luckily my parents knew what they were doing, and they were on my team, so it wasn’t that hard for me. But if you don’t know what you’re getting yourself into, it can be really challenging.”
The bureaucracy of licensure comes with a price tag. “It’s hard to get a license, and the driving teachers are expensive,” freshman Stella Huang, who doesn’t plan to drive at 16, said.
“You have to pay hundreds just to have someone drive with you, and I don’t have that money,” senior Angel Gomez, who waited until this year to get his permit, said. Since he’s 18, Gomez doesn’t need six hours of driving with an instructor to get his license, nor does he need to take an online driver’s ed course.
The graduated license system also requires a significant time commitment. “I just haven’t had time to get my license,” junior Marcelo Rocklin said. “I’m focused on school right now.”
“School would start, and then I would be really busy and tired. I wouldn’t drive for a while and be like, ‘Well, I can’t take the test now. I haven’t driven much in a while, so I need to get back on practicing,’” senior Anna Justice said. Justice, who is 18, got their learner’s permit in 2022 and has since renewed it twice. They plan to get their license this summer. “I haven’t been driving a lot because I’ve been busy with college applications and school and the musical and all of these things.”
Perhaps most importantly, though, adolescents today don’t always feel the need to drive. “Young people used to use cars for socializing,” Cross said. Popular, car-centered activities in the 50s and 60s like cruising have fallen out of fashion, and for some, driving is just not fun.
“I don’t like to drive because it makes me anxious,” Justice said. 40% of teens, including almost 25% of unlicensed teens, fear driving. Even parents are concerned: “My mom won’t let me get my permit,” freshman Melek Ayan said. “She thinks I’ll crash.”
“I still don’t enjoy driving necessarily,” senior Corbin Nam said. Nam got his license eight months after turning 16. “There’s a lot of utility in being able to drive, but it’s not one of the things I enjoy, so I never practiced enough. That set me behind, and I wasn’t getting enough hours to take the behind-the-wheel test.”
Nowadays, people don’t have to meet in-person to communicate: they can text, call, or FaceTime with ease. “The car was used for making social contacts in the past, and that’s less necessary today, and particularly it’s become much less necessary since about 2008 with the coming of cell phones. You have social media, you have texting, you have lots of ways you can meet. So you use the cell phone instead of the dashboard, basically, to make your social contacts,” Cross said.
Even if teens do want to meet up, driving isn’t always necessary. “I’m fine getting around,” Justice said. “That’s probably the reason why I haven’t gotten my license yet. If I need to go somewhere, I can always figure out how to get there.”
“It’s faster to bike to school than to drive to school. I live a mile away,” junior Ryder Ewaniuk, who does not have his license or permit, said.
For many students who can drive, this was not the case before they got their license. “My mom lives in the Woodside district, which is 20 minutes away from school, and it’s 20 minutes away from all of my friends, so most of the time I would be pretty cut off,” Cueva said. Cueva got her license the day after she turned 16.
“My motivation was to go to the gym, which I need the license for because it’s 20 minutes away driving, so it’s an hour or hour-and-a-half bike ride. It’s not very accessible by bike,” junior Josh Cohen said.
“Despite the fact that I don’t like driving, I can’t lie that I drive all the time,” Nam said. “It’s very important to be able to drive. There’s a sense of independence—I can never go back to relying on other people to drive me places. Being able to drive allows me to have a job and get to school and go to the beach with my friends.”
Underclassmen, most of whom aren’t old enough to drive, generally agreed. “I want to be able to transport myself around,” Ayan said.
“Driving would be useful, so I could go do errands and go to school,” sophomore Sebastian Contreras said.
Most teens still feel some pressure to get their licenses. “I’m fairly young compared to my friends. It just seemed like they were all getting their licenses, so I was like, ‘Okay, well, I’ll try as well,’” Cohen said.
“My mom really pushed me to drive. She didn’t want to take me to school anymore. She was like, ‘You need to drive because it’s an important life skill,’” senior Samira Menjivar, who got her license seven months after turning 16, said.
“My parents don’t want to drive me around, which is reasonable,” senior Aarna Singla, who doesn’t have her license, said.
This was even more true in the past. “When I was a kid back in the 1960s, it was very uncool to ride a bicycle after the age of about 10 or 11. I mean, I remember walking instead of riding a bike,” Cross said. “Going from being a child to having a car was hugely significant. It gave you independence.”
The decline in teen driving is not an isolated phenomenon. Adolescents today are participating less in adult activities, whether it be drinking, dating, or driving. Teens are spending less time with their friends, and Americans overall are lonelier. Meanwhile, screen time is up: the average teen spends 4.8 hours a day on social media. American adolescence is changing, and driving is just a symptom.
