Ekdog

In the UK, that is: https://www.grist.org/list/2011-04-27...-hit-peak-cars

dcrowell

It looks like it may be happening in the US too:
https://tinyurl.com/3fqxc77

Overall, this can be a good thing. I believe many young adults are choosing not to own cars.

I-Like-To-Bike

What makes you think so?

gerv 

From Ekdog's article in grist:

...in the UK that is.

dcrowell

I don't have hard numbers for car-free young people in this country, but getting a license and a car seems less important to those that I know. A friend of mine is a high-school teacher, and he's noted the same trend.

It could be an aspect of the growing cost of car ownership, or the poor economy, or something else.

B. Carfree

While only anecdotal, there are six people on my block in the 17-20 age group and only three of them have chosen to get driver's licenses. The one's who have chosen to not drive seem rather determined to stay that way. (Just as many of us old folks were once determined to not turn out like our parents.)

Dahon.Steve

I think the mover away from the motorcar would come around faster if there was public transit to offer an alternative. The trolley was banished from the streets and pubic transit defunded.

I-Like-To-Bike

Don't believe the article stated the reason why the UK youth percentage has dropped. While we can all guess about the reason(s), I would bet on the current economic condition taking the "choice" out of their hands for the time being. When conditions improve the youth may be "choosing" otherwise.

And as you are obviously aware, English youth's "choices" may not indicate anything about the choices being made by North American youth

wahoonc

I have two "youth" that are just over that age demographic. Neither one owns a car. My daughter does have a license and does drive on occasion. My son has a license..or he did and doesn't drive, doesn't want to drive unless there is no other choice, and in the US that happens occasionally. My daughter doesn't own a car for economic reasons, currently she is living in Seattle, WA and is doing just fine without one. However she is headed for grad school in NH and is going to have to consider the possibility of getting a car. My son lives in Boston and does just fine with mass transit and walking. Daughter has a bicycle and uses it quite a bit, my son does not but has considered getting one.

Small sample, but shows some of the reasoning.

Aaron

dcrowell

I have two daughters, 19 and 21.

The 21-year old has a license and used to have a car. She's currently travelling around the country by Amtrak and Greyhound. She does not own a bicycle.

The 19-year old does not have a license. She has moved back in with me and is going to start college this fall. She's been getting around town with her bike and the bus. She traveled to St. Louis twice via Greyhound to visit a friend.

Among their friends, less than half have cars.

CarFreeFam4

While I am a bit older than "youth" at 29, I have definitely found that younger people don't seem to question our decision to be car-free nearly as much as older people. They tend to have questions about the realistic feasibility of it in our city with pretty much non-existent public transit, but they seem to innately understand the reason, and think it a reasonable choice for the most part. The general response is "I'm not sure that would work for me, but it's awesome and were circumstances different I'd go for it" whereas the older demographic generally responds with "Well that's just dumb. Why would you do that?"

Roody

I think it's premature to say cars have peaked, considering the economy and all. But they will peak some day, I'm quite certain. They just aren't a practical form of transportation in modern cities, where more and more of the world's population is moving. (Last year, for the first time, more than half of the population lived in cities.)

Another trend is for people to get married and have children at a much later age. During the royal wedding, it was pointed out that the couple was young by British standards, since the average age of first weddings is now 30. These unmarried people are probaly less likely to won a car.

Nightshade

Cost and complexity prevent many from owning cars if they can avoid it.

gerv 

An obvious assumption for British youth, which seems to apply to NA youth as well, those living in larger cities find the cost of keeping a car (especially parking it) exorbitant. London has over the last few years imposed some stiff tolls for car commuters.

There probably are others... and yes.... I'm sure some will probably choose to buy a car when... if... the economy improves.

wahoonc

In my son's case parking for a car would run $300 a month at his apartment and another $175 a month at work. Instead his work buys him an unlimited MBTA pass that is worth around $100. Win-Win as far as he is concerned.

Aaron

Pobble.808

I found the following comment interesting (Canadian source, but a propos a US trend):

"Even that familiar teenage rite of passage – getting a driver's licence – appears to be diminishing, an inauspicious trend for cars. Although the U.S. teen population is the highest on record, the number with driver's licences is less than 10 million, well below the peak of 12 million in the late 1970s, according to figures compiled by the Earth Policy Institute. Mr. Brown said many teens aren't using cars to socialize, as they would have a generation ago, and instead are using the Internet and smart phones."

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/...rticle1418860/

Surely part of the drop-off has been caused by economic conditions that have made driving impossible for some teens and 20-somethings, but the point made here about some of them having different priorities from their predecessors also sounds plausible. Let's face it, driving a car CAN be a pretty major distraction when you're trying to text somebody...

gerv 

I ran into a young man today who has a pretty reasonable job who told me he didn't have a car, but used a bike most of the time. "It's good enough to get around", he explained, "I just graduated and I have a lot of debt."

That would have been a very unusual thing to hear in a conservative Mid West city 10 years ago. But apparently, not now.

Flying Merkel

Got my first car in 1980. '68 Ford Cortina hand-me-down from Dad to Sis to me. Smashed up heap. In the event of an accident, the car was designed to ensure a quick & merciful (or fiery) death. It was a rolling indictment of the incompetence of the English auto industry. Loved it. Easy to work on, good on gas, insurance cost nothing. Sold it for $300.00 when the transmission started to howl too loud for the badly installed radio to drown out.

Cheap cars like this do not exist in any significant numbers these days. Smog laws killed the cheap crappy car. Teenagers who work part time poorly paid jobs can't pick up a heap of a car that will give 1-2 years service. I literally paid for the car with a paper route using the same car. Didn't take long either.

Ekdog

What is this world coming to? Bring back the smog-belching death traps of our youth!

Flying Merkel

But it was a car. A mostly weather-proof box on wheels to put yer stuff in and zoom about at a mile a minute. Strong stuff to a teenager. Or a single mommy commuting to a job. Life is not perfect. Riding a bike because you have to is different than riding because you choose to. I didn't get a driver's license until I was 18- no use for one.

I'm nostalgic for the old pile. I don't want another one.

I-Like-To-Bike

I get nostalgic about my sister's 49 Cadillac convertible that she bought for $200 in 1963, as well as my first car, a 64 VW bought new for $1720. I wouldn't trade my current car a 2003 Nissan Sentra for either though.

Robert Foster

I have been cycling more after getting rid of my small commuter car. Because I have been cycling more I believe I see more cyclists. But that could be simply because I cycle more. Talking to the owners of my LBS sales aren't popping out of the doors and looking at car sales figures car sales are increasing. Looking at the latest sales figres just about every major car manufacturer had double didget sales increases over last year.

But maybe more importantly I haven't seen a big decrease in cars on my streets during normal traffic hours. I also discovered that london is one of the most photographed cities in the world and looking at some of those cameras it seems as if plenty of people are still driving cars there even with all of the restrictions and a great mass transit system.

China and India are producing and buying cars in record numbers and China is actually buying more cars than the US so I don't know if we can say we have reached peak cars yet or not. My inclination would be to say, not yet.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/travelnews/london/trafficcameras/

Roody

Um, actually the average age of vehicles in the US auto fleet is more than 9 years, the highest ever.

https://www.bts.gov/publications/nati...ble_01_26.html

Roody

Still, car sales are at an annual rate of 13 million, whereas pre-crash sales would often be 15 million or more. Like I said earlier, IMO it's still too early to tell whether these figures are caused by the bad economy or a true reduction in demand for cars.

Robert Foster

Because the OP posted the statement and then made the topic the UK I took it to mean it was open to world production and sales. China bought more than 13.7 million vehicles in 2010 and manufactured more than 18 million units making them a larger producer than Japan.

Peak cars to me would be when we reached the point where production and sales went down not not when sales and production were going up. And from some things we read it is no where near the peak.

"
The number of registered cars, buses, vans, and trucks on the road in China reached 62 million in 2009, and is expected to exceed 200 million by 2020.
The consultancy McKinsey & Company estimates that China's car market will grow tenfold between 2005 and 2030."

So like you I don't know if a full recovery will happen but right now I don't see it at its peak. And all of this from what used to be the land of the Bicycle.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ch...in_Beijing.jpg