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), ra

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.