Maybe they're getting smarter? I didn't get a license until I was 20 - almost 21 (c. 1980). Didn't need one, didn't want one. It didn't make sense to me to incur all the expenses of a car in order to be able to drive to a job to pay for the car! I had a perfectly good school bus in HS that took me to school and back - then when I went to community college, I rode with my mother; the college was on the way to her job. Why pay for a car until you just absolutely have to? Dumb.