Demographics also have an important impact. The two largest current cohorts are aging baby boomers and their young-adult children, known as Generation Y. The youngest of these Millennials are currently in their mid-teens, just the age when they should be getting their driver's licences.
But U.S. transportation data show that many of them are putting off that long-cherished rite of passage well into their 20s.
In fact, they're more likely than any previous generation in the automotive age never to learn to drive at all. It's a choice that may feed into their elders' suspicion that this is a group that stubbornly holds on to its adolescence rather than accommodate itself to adulthood, but is also just a mark of when they came of age. To them, cars are “an older-generation technology,” says Tara Mahoney, 28, of Burnaby, B.C.
Of course, if the kids read this so-called carfree forum, they will be advised to get their licenses as soon as they turn 16. In a recent thread, I was the only one who endorsed the idea of a young person deferring his DL. I feel vindicated reading here that many young people are making that choice already.