6 ms·

Why aren’t younger Americans driving anymore?

40 points by vellum 14y ago

ignostic 14y ago
The second graph should start at 0. It gives the illusion that the change has been more drastic than it was. Personally I don't drive because I can't really afford a car, and with new services like Zipcar I no longer need my own vehicle.
bennesvig 14y ago
Status for teens has transferred from owning a car to Instagram likes. http://www.latimes.com/business/autos/la-fi-hy-autos-teen-driver-20130316-1,0,7422833.story http://www.latimes.com/business/autos/la-fi-hy-autos-teen-dr...
- trhtrsh 14y ago
  Switching from cars to transit is great. But for all the suburban kids who are switching from "going out to see people" to "staying home alone on the computer", I worry for their fate. If they are hanging out with their neighbors instead of driving around town aimlessly, I suppose it's not bad.
13b9f227ecf0 14y ago
I remember pretty much the same article about young Japanese but published many years ago. Despite the thoughtful list I think the main thing is probably the same in both cases: the younger generation is poorer than their predecessors. Younger Americans are also eating less meat. Do you want to spin some list to explain, or just admit we're getting poorer?
- comicjk 14y ago
  I agree with you. That said, to quote the article, "this is true even for young Americans who are financially well off." I have no money problems, but I never got a license and I eat limited meat, with environmental reasons as a major factor in both. At least for me, the two are correlated.
- ics 14y ago
  Interestingly, most Japanese people I know do have their licenses– but do not drive. Money or access to a car isn't the issue either (disclaimer: anecdotal), rather they just don't want to drive. They all got their licenses because they thought a non-driver ID was silly whether or not they were ever going to drive. And that's after going through the standard Japanese driving school which, last time I asked someone, was around 35man (~$3500) at Koyama. I have yet to find any convincing reasons why this is, but at the very least there are some obvious clues for the average Japanese, including but not limited to: much better public transportation, trains run consistently even in very rural areas, density is high enough and Japan is small enough that younger people don't find driving "worth it", and because walking/biking are easy and encouraged. Biking on the sidewalk is illegal in NY– in Yokohama, it's rare to see a cyclist anywhere but the sidewalk. As for the US, I have yet to see this trend of non-drivers. Living in the city of course it's the norm not to drive, but coming from the country, everyone I know is stilling willing to go through all the ropes to get their license and whatever they can with wheels because it's about the closest thing to independence you can get in such a rural area. Now I have noticed people being less motivated to go places thanks to more efficient communication as was mentioned above– Facebook obviously, but even before then AIM had just about everyone and their grandmother. I will not be surprised if further down the road there is a noticeable decline in the number of new drivers because of this, but I haven't seen it just yet. On the money point though, I do think it's a very good thing to bring up when making the generational comparison. I don't really have much to say about it except that when my parents' generation were teenagers, it seemed like everyone could earn the money for a decent (read: popular, not super low-end) car with just a summer job in the country. A suburban job was good enough to enter the low-end muscle/sports car market for some uncles. The late '80s/early '90s generation middle class on the other hand seemed to have two options: take out loans or lease a nice car for your child and hope that they don't wreck it (or beef up your insurance if they do, I suppose) OR, as I'm much more accustomed to, peruse the classifieds until that prized low-mileage foreign auto from past decades finally hits that sweet spot of under $5000 / less than 1sq meter of rust. ...All that being said, there's definitely something to be said for the fact that these days freedom isn't measured in miles attainable, but rather in how much ingenuity, computing power, and free bytes (¡OSS!) you have.
  - 14y ago
- trhtrsh 14y ago
  Younger Americans are eating less meat because the USA is slowly progressing toward vegetarianism and away from the horrors of factory farming. There is plenty of cheap low-quality meat available.
D9u 14y ago
I'm sight impaired. You don't want me driving...
- Mz 14y ago
  Ditto that (though I'm not young, I am also not that old).
protomyth 14y ago
I would say "It’s harder to get a license." is a biggie. We are now treating anyone under 18 as a criminal with stupid restrictions. This continued pushing of the age of responsibility happens in a lot of our lives and I don't think it is improving anything.
ZeroCoin 14y ago
"More younger people are living in transit-oriented areas." I presume this fact, along with "The recession" are the two most important deciding factors when it comes to the reasoning behind OPs question.
pshin45 14y ago
The real question is, how long do we have to wait until Google's driver-less cars become a mainstream reality? Will they become available for everyday use within our lifetime? Today's ride-sharing startups (Uber, Lyft, Sidecar, etc.), while very disruptive in their own right, seem to be more of a bridge technology in the big picture, like Netflix physically mailing DVDs to your house before streaming got big, or maybe native apps vs. HTML5 (that's still TBD). While Airbnb is disrupting the hotel/motel industry in a huge way, I question whether ridesharing will ever get as big. I use Airbnb when I'm traveling or on vacation, which is a few times a year. But rides are something people need ALL THE TIME every day, and I'd rather own a (driver-less) car than have to ask a random stranger for a ride every time I need one.
- dublinben 14y ago
  In my mind, the benefit of a driverless car is that you don't need to own one. You can just pay for the right to use one at any given time, then never worry about it otherwise.
  - pshin45 14y ago
    Yeah I agree it's like the subway in that sense. I just have trouble wrapping my mind around how a shared driver-less car economy would work, especially when it comes to the role of government vs. companies. For example, who would maintain and repair all the cars? Who makes sure that the interior of cars are kept clean and in working order? Would car design become totally commoditized? Cars are a form of self-expression for many, what will people do if all cars are shared and driver-less? I'm not saying this to be cynical, I'm just genuinely curious how all this might play out. When you think about how much time people would save and how many industries would be changed or created, I think it's possible that shared/public driver-less cars might be just as revolutionary as mobile devices and the internet, or at least in the same ballpark.
    - pjbrunet 14y ago
      I think the only way it'll work is if you build a new city from scratch where driving is prohibited. Like Hotel California, you can drive in but you can never drive out ;-)
impendia 14y ago
Not driving is cool (which I'm not sure it was twenty years ago). Not owning a car is a point of pride for many people I met -- certainly in San Francisco and Madison but also in less likely places.
tokenadult 14y ago
From the article: "It’s harder to get a license. From 1996 to 2006, every state enacted graduated driving laws that make it more cumbersome for young people to get licenses. 'Young people must now take more behind-the-wheel training (which is more expensive), fulfill additional requirements for permits, and once they are allowed to drive, they are often restricted to driving in the daytime without passengers.'" That's at least part of it, although the article notes that the percentage change in young people without driver licenses is only from 21 percent in 2001 to 26 percent recently. My oldest son is plenty old enough to drive, and making enough money to get driver training and make payments on a car (he has no student debt), but he lives in New York City, so he has little occasion to drive. He's probably more used to using public transportation in general than many Americans because we all used public transportation to get everywhere when we lived overseas. Our second son is also old enough to drive, and we will spring for his driving lessons if he desires to take them. But he can get to and from high school and many of his activities on foot (we live only a couple miles from the high school) or by bicycle, and of course we offer him rides when he needs rides. So he hasn't had much occasion to drive either. On my part, as an aging Baby Boomer, I'm looking forward eagerly to the era of self-driving cars, when I can ride but not drive, and eventually cease buying vehicles, rather simply subscribing to a self-driving on-demand car service.
- eropple 14y ago
  > I'm looking forward eagerly to the era of self-driving cars, when I can ride but not drive Yes. Yes please. As I said in a sibling comment to yours, I take the train instead of driving because driving is boring and requires me to concentrate on it. A self-driving car makes the five-hour trip to go see my parents a lot more pleasant...
  - modarts 14y ago
    Plus I can only imagine the positive effect on the traffic fatality rate as a result of driver error/intoxication.
  - salmonellaeater 14y ago
    I used to be really excited by the possibility of driverless cars, but now I think overall they're going to be a wash. They will likely have significant downsides: they make traveling long distance less onerous, so sprawl will increase. They'll likely increase the total miles driven. If we want more compact cities and less pollution, with driverless cars we'd need measures to decrease driving above and beyond what we'd need today.
dspeyer 14y ago
The real question is: why did Americans drive so much? Was it to have larger houses+grounds? Was it to be further from poor neighborhoods? Was it about signaling?
- rogerbinns 14y ago
  A partial reason is zoning laws. Ever play SimCity and notice how an area can be marked residential, commercial or industrial but never a combination? This essentially forces people and their work to be in different areas, which then means some form of transport between the two.
  - trhtrsh 14y ago
    It's funny (sad) that SimCity, which was created with an intentional undercurrent of liberal manipulation public opinion regarding urban planning, missed the boat so badly on that topic. It wasn't just an oversimplified game mechanic.
    - rogerbinns 14y ago
      The cities always looked so unnatural to me. Then I visited the US for the first and they looked like they had been lifted from the game!
rprospero 14y ago
Another point that might be US centric is cutting driver's education from the school curriculum. Both my parents had driver's education provided to them by their school while it wasn't even offered at mine.
eropple 14y ago
For me, it's really just boredom. I lived about twenty miles from Boston until a month or so ago and since moving to the South Shore the only times I've driven my car was to go to Target the first week I was here and once more to keep it happy. Driving occupies my attention for no real benefit. If I'm sitting on the train I can read, I can write some code, I look out the window without having to worry about drifting off the road. The train is eighteen bucks a week (or $70 a month, but I don't go into Boston every week so I do a weekly pass) and I live in a place where I can walk to the grocery store--why would I hop in the car for anything?
zzleeper 14y ago
I have the feeling cash for clunkers may also have contributed quite a bit. Young people are much more likely to buy used cars, so by destroying the stock of used/cheap cars, you are pricing the car away from them.
- eropple 14y ago
  In most places, there are plenty of used cars out there if you're looking.
Mz 14y ago
I have two ASD sons. Neither drives. They are in their twenties. The last figure I saw suggested that autism is now about 1 in 150 kids. I wonder how much that factors in. Edit: Dead reply indicates a more recent figure is 1 in 88. (Just trying to share with the folks not wearing their "I see dead people" goggles cuz I used to not wear them either.)
- Joe_Knapp 14y ago
  One in 50 American kids has autism: What the latest figures tell us Recent statistics on autism released by the CDC show an increase from the previous estimate of 1 in 88. Even allowing for more frequent diagnoses, 'a true increase in the number of people with an ASD cannot be ruled out,' the CDC said.
- fennecfoxen 14y ago
  Given that you're looking at a number of 1 in 150 kids and we're looking at a drop of of ~35 per 150 miles... I'd say ... prrrrrroooobably not a big part of that number.
  - Mz 14y ago
    Eh, maybe, maybe not. Someone replied, suggesting 1 in 88 is a more accurate figure. Ballpark rounding and all, that's nearly 2 in 150. If it accounts for 2-ish miles of that 35 out of 150, that's in the neighborhood of 5%. That sounds like a lot to me for a single condition. Quite a lot.
    - trhtrsh 14y ago
      ASD wasn't created in the past 20 years, it has just seen a great increase in diagnosis.
      - Mz 14y ago
        Oh, I think it's a tad more complicated than that.
    - 14y ago
morgante 14y ago
I'm pretty sure increased urbanization accounts for a lot of it. Also, more exposure to international communities where not driving is normal. At least, that's my justification for never learning to drive.
- enjo 14y ago
  I think this is really it. There has no question been a very marked migration to urban centers by younger folks. We're all watching eagerly to see if they'll stay in the cities once they reach their family years.
yekko 14y ago
Because they can't afford it anymore.
beatpanda 14y ago
Who cares? Can't we just be grateful? Cars do extreme, measurable harm to society and we're all better off without them.
asynchronous13 14y ago
Or maybe it's because driving sucks and more people are realizing there's alternatives. I can afford a car, but I choose to live close to work and spend my time and money on other things.
zalew 14y ago
4 hours ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5592371 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5592371
jwilliams 14y ago
I live in Melbourne, Australia -- where it's pretty easy to live without a car (I don't have a car). The anecdotal reasons I see here are: - Definitely the preference for (usually inner-city) higher density areas, which already have good, accessible transit. However, the root cause is these areas are cool, rather than (just) specifically public transport. - Congestion means getting around the inner-city is a real drag in a car. Parking is worse. This makes public transport an easier option. More often than not, people are opting for bikes. I live in the CBD and commute to the inner city. Bike is by far the quickest, public transport next and car a distant third. - Explosion in the availability and convenience of car sharing. - Cost is an issue, but a lot of people I speak to just say it's a "hassle" owning a car, rather than specifically the expense. Sustainable and environmental issues crop up too. - An ongoing and persistent crack-down on drink-driving over the last 2 decades. Young people want to drink & are happy to take public transport to do so.
rayiner 14y ago
Driving sucks, seriously. I lived in downtown Atlanta for most of my adult life, and had a daily 23 mile commute. Anywhere I needed to go, except the bar across the street, involved a car trip. Now I live in the New York suburbs, with a wife and baby, and I drive maybe once a month between Metro North and the subway. My wife doesn't even have a license anymore. It's incredibly liberating. I went to visit my parents last month and got stuck in the never-ending D.C. traffic, and I seriously wanted to kill people. I never realized how much aggression traffic created in me until I didn't have to sit in it any more. I can get as drunk as I want without worrying about driving home (drunk driving is epidemic in car-dependent places like Atlanta). On weekends, I have a happy baby in a stroller instead of a cranky baby in a car seat. Just this weekend we rode the train in from the suburbs, had coffee with my brother on the east side, went shopping near Penn Station, and had drinks and dinner with an old high-school buddy on the west side. At no point did we ever have to take the baby out of her stroller. In D.C., merely going out to lunch is an exercise in traffic and frustration every time the car stops and the baby starts screaming. I realize now that sitting in a car going nowhere is frustrating for everyone, not just the baby--it's just that the baby lacks coping mechanisms to deal with it...
- ics 14y ago
  I'd probably want to kill myself if I had to drive through Atlanta more than once a year. I couldn't even imagine driving in/around Atlanta with any regularity. Edit: I'll add that in all my years of driving, thumbing, and general perusing I don't think I've met a single big rigger who hasn't considered Atlanta to be in or at the top of their five worst places to drive.
  - cesarbs 14y ago
    What exactly is so bad about driving there? Just curious :)
    - rdouble 14y ago
      The road system is overloaded for a city of its size. There is one big connector type freeway going north and south, and then "The Perimeter" which is a circular freeway encircling the whole metro area. And that's about it for freeways, in a metro area of 5.5 million. The rest of it is very narrow surface roads which follow former livestock paths in a hilly wooded area.
nextstep 14y ago
Again, San Francisco lags behind the big trend-setting cities in the US.
- swang 14y ago
  What does this even mean? There is no mention of SF at all in the article.
dcw303 14y ago
I left Sydney for Tokyo. One of the biggest draws for me was the public transport system. I can't imagine going back to a life where I have to spend a significant chunk of my time doing such a mundane and frustrating task. I haven't lived in a US city, but if the traffic is anything like Sydney, I can certainly understand the appeal of ditching that.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
msutherl 14y ago
I've never had a license and nor do most of my best friends. For your curiosity, here are some factors I see: • I grew up in a small town with environmentally conscious friends who chose to bike in all weather because of their beliefs. • As I've moved between metropolitan hipster-areas (i.e. Williamsburg), I've found that same cultural attitude. Riding year round is a cool and a 'right' thing to do. • Since I've lived in metropolitan areas, driving is expensive and the difficulty of parking makes it unattractive. • I don't want to live anywhere that isn't walkable. Even Brooklyn was unsatisfying in that regard. I'm trying Europe next. • Getting a license seems relatively difficult, though it's probably easier than I think it is. • Most of my free time is spent on my computer or otherwise in my house, learning and making. • I'm not sure how expensive cars are, but I don't want to spend any extra money. • All of my friends who don't work in tech are just scraping by. • Yeah, student loans.
pjbrunet 14y ago
Intersection cameras, Police hiding in bushes and behind rocks, crooked towns that give tickets even if you drive the speed limit, trying to find parking where you won't get towed. Owning a car is like owning a business, everybody wants a piece of the action.

40 points by vellum 14y ago

The second graph should start at 0. It gives the illusion that the change has been more drastic than it was. Personally I don't drive because I can't really afford a car, and with new services like Zipcar I no longer need my own vehicle.

bennesvig 14y ago

Status for teens has transferred from owning a car to Instagram likes. http://www.latimes.com/business/autos/la-fi-hy-autos-teen-driver-20130316-1,0,7422833.story http://www.latimes.com/business/autos/la-fi-hy-autos-teen-dr...

trhtrsh 14y ago
Switching from cars to transit is great. But for all the suburban kids who are switching from "going out to see people" to "staying home alone on the computer", I worry for their fate. If they are hanging out with their neighbors instead of driving around town aimlessly, I suppose it's not bad.

13b9f227ecf0 14y ago

I remember pretty much the same article about young Japanese but published many years ago. Despite the thoughtful list I think the main thing is probably the same in both cases: the younger generation is poorer than their predecessors. Younger Americans are also eating less meat. Do you want to spin some list to explain, or just admit we're getting poorer?

comicjk 14y ago
I agree with you. That said, to quote the article, "this is true even for young Americans who are financially well off." I have no money problems, but I never got a license and I eat limited meat, with environmental reasons as a major factor in both. At least for me, the two are correlated.
ics 14y ago
Interestingly, most Japanese people I know do have their licenses– but do not drive. Money or access to a car isn't the issue either (disclaimer: anecdotal), rather they just don't want to drive. They all got their licenses because they thought a non-driver ID was silly whether or not they were ever going to drive. And that's after going through the standard Japanese driving school which, last time I asked someone, was around 35man (~$3500) at Koyama. I have yet to find any convincing reasons why this is, but at the very least there are some obvious clues for the average Japanese, including but not limited to: much better public transportation, trains run consistently even in very rural areas, density is high enough and Japan is small enough that younger people don't find driving "worth it", and because walking/biking are easy and encouraged. Biking on the sidewalk is illegal in NY– in Yokohama, it's rare to see a cyclist anywhere but the sidewalk. As for the US, I have yet to see this trend of non-drivers. Living in the city of course it's the norm not to drive, but coming from the country, everyone I know is stilling willing to go through all the ropes to get their license and whatever they can with wheels because it's about the closest thing to independence you can get in such a rural area. Now I have noticed people being less motivated to go places thanks to more efficient communication as was mentioned above– Facebook obviously, but even before then AIM had just about everyone and their grandmother. I will not be surprised if further down the road there is a noticeable decline in the number of new drivers because of this, but I haven't seen it just yet. On the money point though, I do think it's a very good thing to bring up when making the generational comparison. I don't really have much to say about it except that when my parents' generation were teenagers, it seemed like everyone could earn the money for a decent (read: popular, not super low-end) car with just a summer job in the country. A suburban job was good enough to enter the low-end muscle/sports car market for some uncles. The late '80s/early '90s generation middle class on the other hand seemed to have two options: take out loans or lease a nice car for your child and hope that they don't wreck it (or beef up your insurance if they do, I suppose) OR, as I'm much more accustomed to, peruse the classifieds until that prized low-mileage foreign auto from past decades finally hits that sweet spot of under $5000 / less than 1sq meter of rust. ...All that being said, there's definitely something to be said for the fact that these days freedom isn't measured in miles attainable, but rather in how much ingenuity, computing power, and free bytes (¡OSS!) you have.
- 14y ago
trhtrsh 14y ago
Younger Americans are eating less meat because the USA is slowly progressing toward vegetarianism and away from the horrors of factory farming. There is plenty of cheap low-quality meat available.

D9u 14y ago

I'm sight impaired. You don't want me driving...

Mz 14y ago
Ditto that (though I'm not young, I am also not that old).

protomyth 14y ago

I would say "It’s harder to get a license." is a biggie. We are now treating anyone under 18 as a criminal with stupid restrictions. This continued pushing of the age of responsibility happens in a lot of our lives and I don't think it is improving anything.

ZeroCoin 14y ago

"More younger people are living in transit-oriented areas." I presume this fact, along with "The recession" are the two most important deciding factors when it comes to the reasoning behind OPs question.

pshin45 14y ago

The real question is, how long do we have to wait until Google's driver-less cars become a mainstream reality? Will they become available for everyday use within our lifetime? Today's ride-sharing startups (Uber, Lyft, Sidecar, etc.), while very disruptive in their own right, seem to be more of a bridge technology in the big picture, like Netflix physically mailing DVDs to your house before streaming got big, or maybe native apps vs. HTML5 (that's still TBD). While Airbnb is disrupting the hotel/motel industry in a huge way, I question whether ridesharing will ever get as big. I use Airbnb when I'm traveling or on vacation, which is a few times a year. But rides are something people need ALL THE TIME every day, and I'd rather own a (driver-less) car than have to ask a random stranger for a ride every time I need one.

dublinben 14y ago
In my mind, the benefit of a driverless car is that you don't need to own one. You can just pay for the right to use one at any given time, then never worry about it otherwise.
- pshin45 14y ago
  Yeah I agree it's like the subway in that sense. I just have trouble wrapping my mind around how a shared driver-less car economy would work, especially when it comes to the role of government vs. companies. For example, who would maintain and repair all the cars? Who makes sure that the interior of cars are kept clean and in working order? Would car design become totally commoditized? Cars are a form of self-expression for many, what will people do if all cars are shared and driver-less? I'm not saying this to be cynical, I'm just genuinely curious how all this might play out. When you think about how much time people would save and how many industries would be changed or created, I think it's possible that shared/public driver-less cars might be just as revolutionary as mobile devices and the internet, or at least in the same ballpark.
  - pjbrunet 14y ago
    I think the only way it'll work is if you build a new city from scratch where driving is prohibited. Like Hotel California, you can drive in but you can never drive out ;-)

impendia 14y ago

Not driving is cool (which I'm not sure it was twenty years ago). Not owning a car is a point of pride for many people I met -- certainly in San Francisco and Madison but also in less likely places.

tokenadult 14y ago

From the article: "It’s harder to get a license. From 1996 to 2006, every state enacted graduated driving laws that make it more cumbersome for young people to get licenses. 'Young people must now take more behind-the-wheel training (which is more expensive), fulfill additional requirements for permits, and once they are allowed to drive, they are often restricted to driving in the daytime without passengers.'" That's at least part of it, although the article notes that the percentage change in young people without driver licenses is only from 21 percent in 2001 to 26 percent recently. My oldest son is plenty old enough to drive, and making enough money to get driver training and make payments on a car (he has no student debt), but he lives in New York City, so he has little occasion to drive. He's probably more used to using public transportation in general than many Americans because we all used public transportation to get everywhere when we lived overseas. Our second son is also old enough to drive, and we will spring for his driving lessons if he desires to take them. But he can get to and from high school and many of his activities on foot (we live only a couple miles from the high school) or by bicycle, and of course we offer him rides when he needs rides. So he hasn't had much occasion to drive either. On my part, as an aging Baby Boomer, I'm looking forward eagerly to the era of self-driving cars, when I can ride but not drive, and eventually cease buying vehicles, rather simply subscribing to a self-driving on-demand car service.

eropple 14y ago
> I'm looking forward eagerly to the era of self-driving cars, when I can ride but not drive Yes. Yes please. As I said in a sibling comment to yours, I take the train instead of driving because driving is boring and requires me to concentrate on it. A self-driving car makes the five-hour trip to go see my parents a lot more pleasant...
- modarts 14y ago
  Plus I can only imagine the positive effect on the traffic fatality rate as a result of driver error/intoxication.
- salmonellaeater 14y ago
  I used to be really excited by the possibility of driverless cars, but now I think overall they're going to be a wash. They will likely have significant downsides: they make traveling long distance less onerous, so sprawl will increase. They'll likely increase the total miles driven. If we want more compact cities and less pollution, with driverless cars we'd need measures to decrease driving above and beyond what we'd need today.

dspeyer 14y ago

The real question is: why did Americans drive so much? Was it to have larger houses+grounds? Was it to be further from poor neighborhoods? Was it about signaling?

rogerbinns 14y ago
A partial reason is zoning laws. Ever play SimCity and notice how an area can be marked residential, commercial or industrial but never a combination? This essentially forces people and their work to be in different areas, which then means some form of transport between the two.
- trhtrsh 14y ago
  It's funny (sad) that SimCity, which was created with an intentional undercurrent of liberal manipulation public opinion regarding urban planning, missed the boat so badly on that topic. It wasn't just an oversimplified game mechanic.
  - rogerbinns 14y ago
    The cities always looked so unnatural to me. Then I visited the US for the first and they looked like they had been lifted from the game!

rprospero 14y ago

Another point that might be US centric is cutting driver's education from the school curriculum. Both my parents had driver's education provided to them by their school while it wasn't even offered at mine.

eropple 14y ago

For me, it's really just boredom. I lived about twenty miles from Boston until a month or so ago and since moving to the South Shore the only times I've driven my car was to go to Target the first week I was here and once more to keep it happy. Driving occupies my attention for no real benefit. If I'm sitting on the train I can read, I can write some code, I look out the window without having to worry about drifting off the road. The train is eighteen bucks a week (or $70 a month, but I don't go into Boston every week so I do a weekly pass) and I live in a place where I can walk to the grocery store--why would I hop in the car for anything?

zzleeper 14y ago

I have the feeling cash for clunkers may also have contributed quite a bit. Young people are much more likely to buy used cars, so by destroying the stock of used/cheap cars, you are pricing the car away from them.

eropple 14y ago
In most places, there are plenty of used cars out there if you're looking.

Mz 14y ago

I have two ASD sons. Neither drives. They are in their twenties. The last figure I saw suggested that autism is now about 1 in 150 kids. I wonder how much that factors in. Edit: Dead reply indicates a more recent figure is 1 in 88. (Just trying to share with the folks not wearing their "I see dead people" goggles cuz I used to not wear them either.)

Joe_Knapp 14y ago
One in 50 American kids has autism: What the latest figures tell us Recent statistics on autism released by the CDC show an increase from the previous estimate of 1 in 88. Even allowing for more frequent diagnoses, 'a true increase in the number of people with an ASD cannot be ruled out,' the CDC said.
fennecfoxen 14y ago
Given that you're looking at a number of 1 in 150 kids and we're looking at a drop of of ~35 per 150 miles... I'd say ... prrrrrroooobably not a big part of that number.
- Mz 14y ago
  Eh, maybe, maybe not. Someone replied, suggesting 1 in 88 is a more accurate figure. Ballpark rounding and all, that's nearly 2 in 150. If it accounts for 2-ish miles of that 35 out of 150, that's in the neighborhood of 5%. That sounds like a lot to me for a single condition. Quite a lot.
  - trhtrsh 14y ago
    ASD wasn't created in the past 20 years, it has just seen a great increase in diagnosis.
    - Mz 14y ago
      Oh, I think it's a tad more complicated than that.
  - 14y ago

morgante 14y ago

I'm pretty sure increased urbanization accounts for a lot of it. Also, more exposure to international communities where not driving is normal. At least, that's my justification for never learning to drive.

enjo 14y ago
I think this is really it. There has no question been a very marked migration to urban centers by younger folks. We're all watching eagerly to see if they'll stay in the cities once they reach their family years.

yekko 14y ago

Because they can't afford it anymore.

beatpanda 14y ago

Who cares? Can't we just be grateful? Cars do extreme, measurable harm to society and we're all better off without them.

asynchronous13 14y ago

Or maybe it's because driving sucks and more people are realizing there's alternatives. I can afford a car, but I choose to live close to work and spend my time and money on other things.

zalew 14y ago

4 hours ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5592371 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5592371

jwilliams 14y ago

I live in Melbourne, Australia -- where it's pretty easy to live without a car (I don't have a car). The anecdotal reasons I see here are: - Definitely the preference for (usually inner-city) higher density areas, which already have good, accessible transit. However, the root cause is these areas are cool, rather than (just) specifically public transport. - Congestion means getting around the inner-city is a real drag in a car. Parking is worse. This makes public transport an easier option. More often than not, people are opting for bikes. I live in the CBD and commute to the inner city. Bike is by far the quickest, public transport next and car a distant third. - Explosion in the availability and convenience of car sharing. - Cost is an issue, but a lot of people I speak to just say it's a "hassle" owning a car, rather than specifically the expense. Sustainable and environmental issues crop up too. - An ongoing and persistent crack-down on drink-driving over the last 2 decades. Young people want to drink & are happy to take public transport to do so.

rayiner 14y ago

Driving sucks, seriously. I lived in downtown Atlanta for most of my adult life, and had a daily 23 mile commute. Anywhere I needed to go, except the bar across the street, involved a car trip. Now I live in the New York suburbs, with a wife and baby, and I drive maybe once a month between Metro North and the subway. My wife doesn't even have a license anymore. It's incredibly liberating. I went to visit my parents last month and got stuck in the never-ending D.C. traffic, and I seriously wanted to kill people. I never realized how much aggression traffic created in me until I didn't have to sit in it any more. I can get as drunk as I want without worrying about driving home (drunk driving is epidemic in car-dependent places like Atlanta). On weekends, I have a happy baby in a stroller instead of a cranky baby in a car seat. Just this weekend we rode the train in from the suburbs, had coffee with my brother on the east side, went shopping near Penn Station, and had drinks and dinner with an old high-school buddy on the west side. At no point did we ever have to take the baby out of her stroller. In D.C., merely going out to lunch is an exercise in traffic and frustration every time the car stops and the baby starts screaming. I realize now that sitting in a car going nowhere is frustrating for everyone, not just the baby--it's just that the baby lacks coping mechanisms to deal with it...

ics 14y ago
I'd probably want to kill myself if I had to drive through Atlanta more than once a year. I couldn't even imagine driving in/around Atlanta with any regularity. Edit: I'll add that in all my years of driving, thumbing, and general perusing I don't think I've met a single big rigger who hasn't considered Atlanta to be in or at the top of their five worst places to drive.
- cesarbs 14y ago
  What exactly is so bad about driving there? Just curious :)
  - rdouble 14y ago
    The road system is overloaded for a city of its size. There is one big connector type freeway going north and south, and then "The Perimeter" which is a circular freeway encircling the whole metro area. And that's about it for freeways, in a metro area of 5.5 million. The rest of it is very narrow surface roads which follow former livestock paths in a hilly wooded area.

nextstep 14y ago

Again, San Francisco lags behind the big trend-setting cities in the US.

swang 14y ago
What does this even mean? There is no mention of SF at all in the article.

dcw303 14y ago

I left Sydney for Tokyo. One of the biggest draws for me was the public transport system. I can't imagine going back to a life where I have to spend a significant chunk of my time doing such a mundane and frustrating task. I haven't lived in a US city, but if the traffic is anything like Sydney, I can certainly understand the appeal of ditching that.

deleted 14y ago
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msutherl 14y ago

I've never had a license and nor do most of my best friends. For your curiosity, here are some factors I see: • I grew up in a small town with environmentally conscious friends who chose to bike in all weather because of their beliefs. • As I've moved between metropolitan hipster-areas (i.e. Williamsburg), I've found that same cultural attitude. Riding year round is a cool and a 'right' thing to do. • Since I've lived in metropolitan areas, driving is expensive and the difficulty of parking makes it unattractive. • I don't want to live anywhere that isn't walkable. Even Brooklyn was unsatisfying in that regard. I'm trying Europe next. • Getting a license seems relatively difficult, though it's probably easier than I think it is. • Most of my free time is spent on my computer or otherwise in my house, learning and making. • I'm not sure how expensive cars are, but I don't want to spend any extra money. • All of my friends who don't work in tech are just scraping by. • Yeah, student loans.

pjbrunet 14y ago

Intersection cameras, Police hiding in bushes and behind rocks, crooked towns that give tickets even if you drive the speed limit, trying to find parking where you won't get towed. Owning a car is like owning a business, everybody wants a piece of the action.