U.S. Teenagers Are Driving Much Less: 4 Theories About Why 635
Paul Fernhout writes "U.S. teenagers just aren't as into driving as they used to be, U.S. government forecasters acknowledged in dramatically altered projections for transportation energy use over the next 25 years." Online presence is one of the reasons mentioned, which makes a lot of sense to me as a factor, no matter the age of the drivers involved. Whatever your age, do you drive less than you did 10 years ago?
Porn ... (Score:5, Funny)
Before, teens needed to have a car to impress the girls ...
Now, they just need an internet connection and some hand-cream.
Re:Porn ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Before, teens needed to have a car to impress the girls ...
...and today, it's difficult to impress a girl with a car with a car. ;-)
Re:Porn ... (Score:4, Interesting)
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b109/cherry_tw1st/quagmire-learns-about-internet-porn-family-guy.png [photobucket.com]
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Before, teens needed to have a car to impress the girls ...
Now, they just need an internet connection and some hand-cream.
I'm not entirely sure a porn habit and one arm twice the size of the other impresses the girls much.
That's why you (1) alternate and (2) do twice as many reps. Plus, you always have soft hands.
Re:Not sure that's what they need... (Score:5, Insightful)
Your conclusion doesn't follow, you know. You're assuming that not just promiscuity rates have to be the same, but individual promiscuity has to be. Picture this scenario. Ten guys and ten girls live together. All ten of the guys have slept with five of the girls in the house within the first ten days. That makes them promiscuous. However, five of the girls engaged in no sexual activity whatsoever. That gives us a 100% male promiscuity rate, and a 50% female promiscuity rate.
But how can that be! Because "statistically", according to "Sique" on /., the rates have to be equal!
No, wait, the other five girls simply had more sex. Now it makes sense!
Please avoid throwing words like "statistical" around until you understand it, for fuck's sake. It doesn't make you look smart, it makes you look like a total idiot.
Then again, I'm arguing with a total idiot on /. so what does that make me?
Analysis too shallow (Score:4, Funny)
If we're going to discuss this properly then I think we need more info on any possible threesomes.
Re:Not sure that's what they need... (Score:5, Insightful)
Your problem is that promiscuity rates are not usually measured in average partners; they are measured in modes or quartiles or something like that. From the article you link to:
"A 1994 study in the United States, which looked at the number of sexual partners in a lifetime, found that 20% of heterosexual men had only one partner, 55% had two to twenty partners, and 25% had more than twenty partners."
See? No average partner numbers. Instead, proportions in a defined class.
Flaw in your logic (Score:3)
There is a flaw in your logic. What is probably confusing you is that the ratio used was 50%. However, modifying the example, lets say all 10 guys slept with one only two of the girls.
Now you have 10 boys having average sex with 2 grils each, giving a promiscuity rate of 2 sexual parterners per boy. 2 girls have slept with all 10 boys and 8 girls have had no sex at all, which using your version still gives a rate of 2.
However, 80% of the girls have had no sex and 100% of the boys have had sex. Are you reall
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There are 20 people. 10 male. 20 Female.
I lost it.
Re:Porn ... (Score:5, Informative)
My fiance was plenty impressed by my Echo - she won't let me get a new car because the sub-compacts available don't compare.
That said, there's a simple reason why people are driving less: cost. Fuel is more expensive but more importantly the insurance is crazy for those under 25. $3k/year or more vs $750-1100 for 25+
Re:Porn ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Hell, yes, on the insurance. I can't comprehend it - I've had pretty much the same premium since I qualified (at the age of 24), so it's been dropping in real terms about in line with inflation. But the kids these days are facing premiums of 10 x as much. I just went to a boardgaming meetup and had this confirmed to me by most of the younger attendees.
You could don a tinfoil hat and say that someone wants to restrict their mobility.
Re:Porn ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Teens drivers are, on average, 4 times as likely to be involved in a crash. They're far more likely to engage in dangerous behaviors like driving drunk or texting. And teens are far less likely to wear a seat belt.
If policies cost that much, it's because the actuaries arrived at that number for a reason. There's no conspiracy...if it should be cheaper, another competitor would charge less.
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We had direct lines to decision makers at nearly all of these companies. The policies were once calculated off of statistics several decades ago. Since then, the companies just clone other companies policies,
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When I was 16(almost 20 years ago), my policy would have been $6k/year(figure in exchange at the time that's nearly $13k/year USD) and that's *with* the good grades discount offered by many insurance companies. When I was 20, I'd been co-insured on my parents cars for 4 years accident free and I bought my first car and wanted to insurance. It was still over $4k/year, well you can guess what I did...co-insured with my parents. Dropping the premium to $1100/year. Today, my insurance is 888/yr. And to thi
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Similar story here.
I briefly moved there when I was ~20; and my driving record wasn't spotless. A couple speeding tickets, and an at-fault low speed minor fender bender over 4 years.
Cheapest insurance I could get in Toronto was $7500; and it went up from there to $13000. The car, a used MR2, was worth $5000.
So the 8 months we were there I didn't drive. Car sat in storage. I moved back to BC; where the insurance even with the driving record was $2600 or so; and am still in BC, now a decade or so later with a
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My fiance was plenty impressed by my Echo
An Echo isn't as bad as a prius.
The problem is there aren't any exciting cars any more. I put this down to the decline of the manual transmission in the US.
Auto boxes, even powerful auto boxes with 300 odd HP at the rear wheels just aren't fun to drive. The old adage is, it's more fun to drive a slow car fast than a fast car slow. I used to bang an EK Civic (88 Kw) around a track and it was great fun, you cant do that with an auto because the slushbox interferes when you try to take a corner at speed,
Re: Porn ... (Score:3)
Hippy girls are still impressed by a cool car, they won't ever admit it and they will even complain about it after servicing you while parked at the lake.
Murica Fuck yea! (Score:5, Insightful)
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Catching up to Europe I suppose.
Re:Murica Fuck yea! (Score:5, Insightful)
Then there's a long way to go. Petrol in Europe is still 6 times more expensive. No, really. 6 times.
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Like all other things, I'm sure you are paying for a superior product... ~
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No, the Europeans pay for both the benefits and the health/enviro costs of petroleum products. Americans just pay for the benefits and shrug off the real costs to their children and future generations. That's why some products are very expensive in Europe - they are priced at what they really cost.
Re:Murica Fuck yea! (Score:5, Interesting)
No, actually we Americans probably pay the most for gasoline, we just do it indirectly. A huge portion of our income taxes and inflationary debts go to fund the worlds largest military apparatus, which disproportionately expends its efforts in or near oil producing regions, theoretically at least ensuring a constant supply.
Lefties don't understand why we can't have all the social programs of Europe, and Righties don't understand why we have to have personal income taxes that are so high, and corporate taxes that are event higher, in both cases its because we are paying to make cheap gasoline available.
Re:Murica Fuck yea! (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow, what a ton of bullshit.
Not only is household taxation in the US less than in the EU (and don't even get me started about VAT) you get to sell your military produce to European countries as well! You do not pay the most for gasoline, either directly or indirectly. You don't have "all the social programs of Europe" because they don't fit in your mentality/way of living, and that's fine by me, but don't give us the crap that you can't afford them because you have to ensure cheap oil for the rest of the world!
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you are so funny, of course big corporations including central banks have government in their pockets in Europe the same as in the USA
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Well, no.
Over the last six years, the DEFICIT has been larger than the total military budget.
So we couldn't even begin to pay down the national debt if we ZEROED the military budget, much less do that, slash taxes, and increase social spending.
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Not something to be smug about (Score:3)
Re:Murica Fuck yea! (Score:5, Insightful)
Then there's a long way to go. Petrol in Europe is still 6 times more expensive. No, really. 6 times.
Yes, gas is much more expensive in Europe BUT :
- most of our cities are tailored for people and not cars
- we have very good public transportation that you americans can't even begin to comprehend
- taking the car to the grocery store that's 100 meters from your place is just stupid.
- so you only take the car when absolutely necessary.
- Just imagine people living up to 100 km from Paris or London and commuting every day to the city on a train. No need to take the car. Saves you a freakton of money.
- in the US because of your hyper developed suburbia without cars you die.
Re:Murica Fuck yea! (Score:5, Insightful)
There are a ton of historical reasons American cities are built the way they are. First, because almost all of your cities were built long before the existence of cars, American cities were created after the existence of cars. What you don't seen to understand is all the empty space we had 100 years ago. By comparison, the rest of the world is incredibly crowded and land is extremely expensive. Because American land was cheap, and cars were cheap, and gas was cheap, it was easy to live an extra mile away from the city and buy an acre or hectare to give yourself room. Honestly, if it was easily affordable, would you choose to continue to live cheek-to-cheek with your next door neighbor, sharing a wall with him and his noisy children and his smelly cooking, or would you like a garden of your own?
As American cities grew, people found it very easy and affordable to move 10, 15, or 20 miles away from the city center, and do the same thing. (I know people now who commute 60 miles each way or more in order to live on 5 hectares of their own, or on a lakeshore.) Thus begat suburbs.
Of course, living 20 miles from the city means you don't want to drive 15 miles to the grocery store, so people built grocery stores out near the houses. But they're still a mile or five away from most people.
Because the suburban population density is so low compared to the rest of the world, infrastructure is much more expensive. Cities can't afford to run a bus down every suburban street, and the buses can't afford to go every market or shop. So bus stops are often a mile or more from many suburban residents, and they only take you to the main city, never to neighboring suburbs or even to local shops.
We were built on cheap gas, and now we have to make some serious urban changes to fix it. And those are very expensive.
Re:Murica Fuck yea! (Score:5, Informative)
There are a ton of historical reasons American cities are built the way they are. First, because almost all of your cities were built long before the existence of cars, American cities were created after the existence of cars.
Most American cities were built after the invention of the railroad. (ca 1825)
The move to the suburbs was well established before the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge. (1883) Streetcar suburb [wikipedia.org]
Before Amazon,com, there was the Sears, Roebuck catalog. "The World's Largest Store." offering convenient and affordable rural and suburban home delivery.
There are many, many forces which resist centralization in the states.
Re:Murica Fuck yea! (Score:5, Informative)
The worst part is, many towns build around railroads exorcised their train stations and rail lines. So places which once had a centrally located rail station now have a trail running through downtown, and (at best) a station 10 miles away from town with a parking lot the size of the town. Even worse, the "network effect" of a local bus system bringing people to downtown (which works great with downtown train stations) is lost because the train station is now at a "spoke" of the system, rather than the hub.
And the above is the best case scenario. At worst, they didn't even bother putting in a replacement station, and the area became completely automobile-ized.
Re:Murica Fuck yea! (Score:5, Interesting)
The automobile industry also had a lot to do with the current situation by buying up the public (which actually was private) transportation and shutting it down. As Westlake says, the cities were spreading out before the automobile, just in a more sane manner, eg following the tram lines and railroads.
For better or worse, the market has a heavy influence on development and their aim is not to improve the average persons life, but to sell something.
Re:Murica Fuck yea! (Score:4, Interesting)
All good points, and valid. However there were also some VERY shady deals to deliberately dismantle public transport on the USA, often misusing anti-monopoly legislation to gut the streetcar (tram) networks.
This is especially evident in LA, where the freeways have taken over the same routes that the old streetcars used to.
Yes, the example above is familiar - it was used [with some historical accuracy, ironically] in the movie "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096438 [imdb.com]
More on the "streetcar scandal" at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_American_streetcar_scandal [wikipedia.org]
Re: Murica Fuck yea! (Score:5, Interesting)
Very true. I'm Australian and moved to America last year, so I have some personal experience of this.
In Australia I lived around 500 metres from the closest grocery store and we often walked there and filled a couple of large hessian bags with groceries and walked back. The groceries would last several days. The walk itself took 15 minutes out of your day and was a pleasant stroll through low density suburbia - on the sidewalk at first, then on a bike path behind the local high school, past a park and over a pedestrian bridge to the local shopping area.
I now live in America in a similar suburban area (large homes on separate blocks etc.) and the closest supermarket is, by luck, even closer. Maybe 150 metres or so - can literally see the roof of it out the window. However, despite the area being very similar in terms of density and layout, walking there is significantly more difficult. Firstly, while my street has a sidewalk, some don't. From where I am, I have to walk down this unsaved embankment next to a road and look very awkward in doing so. Not to mention its covered with knee deep snow this time of year. Secondly I then have to cross a four lane road and there is no tunnel, bridge or signalled pedestrian crossing like you'd find in Australia - even right across from the shopping area (which is reasonably sized with a supermarket, pharmacy, hairdresser, restaurants ... at least 15 businesses located together, so you'd think there'd be quite a few people trying to get there?)
So while you can walk there, it's much less convenient/pleasant. I have been guilty of the drive 100 metres to the store thing myself, even though I would never have done so back home, despite living in a very similar suburban area (Australia is just as suburbanised as the US, not like Europe at all, and yet has much better pedestrian access to things than here).
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we have very good public transportation that you americans can't even begin to comprehend
Not in the UK, our public transport is shit. So are our roads. Our petrol is pretty expensive too. Bugger.
Re:Murica Fuck yea! (Score:5, Insightful)
What do you do, go once a month and only buy things in cans or glass bottles?
Or are you just a pencil-necked flid? A medium rucksack load does five of us for a few days.
Re:Murica Fuck yea! (Score:5, Interesting)
In comparison to Europeans, they do. They buy more packaged goods and the packaged goods in the US last longer than in the EU. Europeans make far more supermarket runs per week than Americans.
Source: A document that I found at work, written by Americans to help their fellow Americans settle in Germany. They gave warning that food spoils faster than they are used to in the US, that it is normal to go to the supermarket once a day,
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can you share that document ? sounds interesting - and true :)
in europe, it's common to grab some food every couple of days, if not every day. you don't now that well what you will eat and that will sit a bit longer. shopping more often allows to throw out much less.
Re:Murica Fuck yea! (Score:4, Insightful)
You just stop every day on the way home from work and buy what you want for that day and maybe the next.
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Re:Murica Fuck yea! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Murica Fuck yea! (Score:5, Insightful)
Every family is a single person family? Or every member can carry their own shopping? How about we assume that it is better for a single person to do a family's shopping, and you can state how any of this is relevant.
Umm, you just go to the grocery store more often. Seriously, is this that hard to understand?
Just about every normal person in continental Europe goes to the store at least every other day, often every day. You get fresh food -- fresh fruits, fresh vegetables, fresh meats, fresh baked goods. Everything tastes a heck of a lot better, and you only have to pay for a refrigerator and pantry about 1/3 or 1/4 of the size of an American one.
I know you think this may take up a lot of time, but frankly it's worth it -- for the better quality of fresh food. Most Europeans simply plan their daily commute around making a trip to the store (many general stores are located near subway stops and such in major cities, so you can simply stop in on your way home during your commute).
In American supermarkets, the bonus is that you can almost always go through the "15 items or less" or whatever lane, so check-out is significantly faster if you shop often and carry your goods by hand.
When I was single (in the U.S.), I used to live a few blocks from a grocery store, and I only drove there maybe once per year -- the rest of the time, I'd just shop once or twice per week, which was enough for a single person carrying things home by hand. For a while with a family, I lived further from a major grocery store, but now I live within walking distance again and have taken to walking there fairly often... though not on a regular basis because I can't commute on foot. If I were commuting on foot, and the grocery store were near my stop, I would definitely buy groceries there many times per week and walk them home.
Re:Murica Fuck yea! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Murica Fuck yea! (Score:5, Insightful)
- taking the car to the grocery store that's 100 meters from your place is just stupid.
How are you going to get the groceries back home, make 10 trips? I think I'd prefer to drive.
My wife lived in Spain for a year, way back in the day, and said people typically did a small shop every (or every other) day buying a few fresh things they needed for that day or the next few. Here in 'murica, we tend to do big, infrequent shops buying lots of stuff all at once - often pre/packaged stuff, with lots of preservatives.
Re:Murica Fuck yea! (Score:5, Insightful)
I know this sounds crazy but some people go to the market every day.
Yes, some people do that. Other people have better things to do with their life than to spend 30 minutes every day in a store. I buy food maybe once in two weeks. Some of it is in cans, other is dry (pasta, rice, flour) and other is frozen, so it can be stored nearly forever. I load the car pretty well on those trips. The store is in about 40 minutes of driving from my home. (There are stores closer than that; the closest is about 15 minutes away, but I dislike it.) I usually stop by the better store when I am in the area for other reasons; and when you are free to pick the day, it's not difficult to find time.
Sometimes the basket gets quite heavy, but it's still something I could carry 100 meters with little problem. And that's 1+ weeks of groceries for me (yeah I'm single).
This works if you buy often, and only in small packages. This is expensive. I tend to buy stuff in large packages, they cost far less per unit of food. But one gallon container will be pretty heavy. There is also an issue of how fast can you deliver frozen food to your own freezer. I guess a short trip on a bicycle is not any worse than a long trip in a car, but in some cases this is a factor (for example, pushing a cart for a mile in hot sun vs. driving an a/c car for 5 miles.) Your family may not like melted ice cream.
Re:Murica Fuck yea! (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Murica Fuck yea! (Score:4, Insightful)
I agree. A lot of my friends who visited usa complain about the abysmal state of public transport there. Every single one of them said that you _need_ to have your own car to really be able to move around. The odd one has mentioned that new york is better but not really comparable to the cities in Europe which have decent public transport.
In the Netherlands, I was impressed by the public transportation system and felt like "Why would I need my own car here? On the rare occasions that I need it, I can just rent one". This is reflected on the streets. The number of people using cars is very small compared to those who use public transport.
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One must understand that while European cities we built, like most cities around the world and like the older cities in US, around natural needs of the community over centuries, the main buildup of US cities happened as the car boom started. As a result, they were built "inside out" from what cities all over the world generally look. Instead of having city centre that is very densely populated and most prestigious to live in, and various areas outside of it that are less prestigious to live in and less dens
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For those extreme once-twice a year occasions, grab a taxi. It offers far more freedom than your own car, as it doesn't tie you down financially, nor do you have to worry about breakdowns.
For the rest of uses in larger cities, there is public transit.
Re:Murica Fuck yea! (Score:4, Insightful)
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And the Netherlands are practically flat enough to bicycle without pedalling.
Seriously though, in a democracy, it is the population's reliance on gasoline which dictates the government's ability to tax it, moreso than tax dictates consumption. The USA is 142 on the list of countries by population density, Norway, Sweden, Finland are the only western European nations with less, and that includes a lot of land north of the arctic circle.. Russia has less population density... and cheaper gasoline, than USA.
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And the Netherlands are practically flat enough to bicycle without pedalling.
Indeed. If you find yourself at sea level, you can usually free-wheel down from there.
Re:Murica Fuck yea! (Score:4, Insightful)
But Norway, Sweden and Finland have some of Europes highest prices for gasoline
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the other 3.75X is opportunity cost, namely the cost of flying from europe to america, buying the gas, and trying to get the barrels past airport security.
bizarrely, here in Canada, one of our airport security guards found a pipe bomb in the carry on bag for a teenager, and the guard initially tried to GIVE IT BACK to the passenger, who insisted that the guard keep it. The guard did, and the teen was permitted to fly that day. Of course, when the teen returned, he was attacked by a SWAT team.
I guess we hi
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saying that European cards are over twice as fuel efficient is a completely unfounded claim
An important factor is that European mileage (kilometerage?) measurements are total BS. In the US people the old EPA numbers were unrealistically high, but the new ones are realistic. By contrast, the European numbers are worse than the old EPA numbers. There are few if any restrictions on how you can modify the car for the tests. Thinner engine oil and tranny fluid, over-inflated tires, even duct tape over external vents and whatnot that increase the aerodynamic drag. So when people marvel at 55 mpg small
Re:Murica Fuck yea! (Score:5, Insightful)
True! The cost of driving has risen. Mandatory insurance plus the price of gas and harder to repair old cars all contribute. I am not saying a teen cannot learn to fix cars, but more tools are needed then ever. I could have changed most wearing parts of my Delta-88 (teenage car) with tools my dad had lying around.
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They also have been steadily raising the age where a teen can get a full license. When I was licensed, you could get a learner's permit at 15.5 (I think), and you could take the test for the full, unrestricted license any time after your 16th birthday.
Just a couple years later, the age had already started drifting up, with new drives in my state able to obtain only a restricted license until 17 (now 18, I think, and you need to be older to get the restricted license, too), on the grounds that inexperienced
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Today's cars are much, much more reliable than the cars I grew up with. Modern cars don't need yearly tuneups. There are no points to adjust. No crappy, complicated, and finicky carburetors to rebuild, today's spark plugs last for 100,000 or more km, etc...
So that isn't an issue.
We have always had mandatory insurance up here so that isn't an issue.
But none of my three kids drive, only one even bothered to get a learners license while I was at the drivers license office 5 minutes after I turned 16. Lo
Re:Murica Fuck yea! (Score:5, Interesting)
oh bullshit. You get an engine code, drive to autozone (except in the republic of california where the lawyers own everything) and the code scanner tells you what's wrong. No more "what's wrong with the carburetor and it's 1000 parts. It's now plug-in diagnostic computers. Oh, and they don't break as much, so you don't do that as much.
No, sorry, it is significantly harder. Particularly routine maintenance -- and I do think it's deliberate. On a recent car, I discovered that to change the oil, the only reasonable way to change the filter without a lift was to take a wheel off.
When my dad was changing oil in cars, he could crawl underneath, pull the plug, access the filter from some reasonable spot, and all was relatively simple. If I don't have access to a lift, I have to buy jack stands and take the wheel off -- just to change the oil and filter.
I could go on with other examples of basic maintenance -- like having batteries that require just the right length socket to get them out (too short, and you can't get to it, too long and you hit something), or making headlight replacement so annoying that you have to take half of the front quarter of the car apart -- and this is only with the few cars I've dealt with in the past few years... mainstream models
We're not talking about complicated repairs here. Basic maintenance has become a pain for many vehicles unless you're willing to go out and buy a special tool for each job or go through a ridiculously complex series of steps if you don't have access to the kind of stuff in a professional garage.
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Absolutely. Plus, those working-class families can't afford to give their teenager the old car because they have to keep it running another five years because wages have eroded.
When I was 17, my dad gave me the old Chevy Caprice because it was paid off and my dad wanted a new car. The normal car loan was 3 years and a machinist in a single-earner household could afford to buy a new car every 4 years. So I was driving a V8 b
Gas price probably has more to do with it. (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes I drive a lot less than I used to 10 years ago, but it less to do with the Internet and more to do with the price of gas....
http://money.cnn.com/2004/03/23/news/economy/gas_aaa/ [cnn.com]
Re:Gas price probably has more to do with it. (Score:5, Insightful)
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I don't buy this argument, because the same is being seen in europe, where the price of gas is (and was) 4 times higher.
Re:Gas price probably has more to do with it. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Gas price probably has more to do with it. (Score:4, Insightful)
How many do you think he needs? I'd have thought one at a time is enough.
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Re:Gas price probably has more to do with it. (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes I drive a lot less than I used to 10 years ago, but it less to do with the Internet and more to do with the price of gas....
I'm not sure why your comment and link to an ancient article on gas prices (2004?!) got modded insightful, but when you factor in inflation, gas prices aren't particularly high. They're at a pretty normal level compared to historical prices (again, inflation adjusted).
That being said, the inflation adjusted income of the middle class has been going down for decades. That's more likely to be your culprit.
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Yes I drive a lot less than I used to 10 years ago, but it less to do with the Internet and more to do with the price of gas....
I'm not sure why your comment and link to an ancient article on gas prices (2004?!) got modded insightful, but when you factor in inflation, gas prices aren't particularly high. They're at a pretty normal level compared to historical prices (again, inflation adjusted).
That being said, the inflation adjusted income of the middle class has been going down for decades. That's more likely to be your culprit.
Try, the income of middle class has not been keeping up with inflation, let alone the real price of goods and services the last 10 years.
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Yes I drive a lot less than I used to 10 years ago, but it less to do with the Internet and more to do with the price of gas....
I'm not sure why your comment and link to an ancient article on gas prices (2004?!) got modded insightful, but when you factor in inflation, gas prices aren't particularly high. They're at a pretty normal level compared to historical prices (again, inflation adjusted).
That being said, the inflation adjusted income of the middle class has been going down for decades. That's more likely to be your culprit.
Well the article we are posting in (I can hardly believe I have to explain this...) is about how teenagers are driving less now than they where 10 years ago...
I linked to an article talking about the gas prices in 2004...10 years ago.
Gas prices have doubled, wages have not, Pretty simple?
Alice Cooper has the Answer. (Score:5, Funny)
Don't got a job because I don't have a car.
Don't have a car cause I don't have a job.
Don't have a girl cause I don't have a car.
So I'm looking for a girl with a job and a car.
Look before I go (Score:4, Interesting)
I check a store's inventory and maybe make a call before I drive off. Olden days I would need to travel around to different stores to find a special item. More often than not I also mail order supplies I would have bought locally. Sorry Radio Shack. Well, not really.
Controlled for minimum driving age? (Score:5, Informative)
At least in CT, the age at which you can practically operate a vehicle on your own keeps creeping up, and there are always new rules restricting the privilege (only during the day, no passengers, etc). Assuming that the rest of the nation passes similar policies (given that we never repeal such things it has to be a purely additive effect anyway), I would think it obvious that teens drive less on average, as teens can't drive as much.
Re:Controlled for minimum driving age? (Score:4, Informative)
This. In Michigan, I waited until I was 18 just to avoid dealing with graduated driver licensing laws. The bureaucracy alone they create is a PITA.
During my time working at the DMV, kids would often bring their fathers in to sign for approving their next level license. At least twice a day I was sending home angry kids because daddy dearest wasn't on the birth certificate.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Much less (Score:3)
I drive significantly less than I did 10 years ago. I moved into the city, and am now able to take public transit to work, which was, previously, the lion's share of my driving.
As for the why... the price of fuel is a pretty big factor. Between that, and the fact that I'm now living in an area where public transit is a viable option, I don't really see the point in driving the car for anything other than shopping trips, and I can do most of those on the weekend. The very few things I may need during the week can be had at the grocery store, deli, or drug store across the street from my apartment building.
I still own a car, and I can't see myself ever giving it up, but I don't *need* to drive everywhere like I did when I lived in the country.
Better things to do (Score:5, Insightful)
When I was a teenager in the late 70s, there was nothing to do except jump in the car and drive down Main Street and yell out the window to friends loitering in front of the bars, get to the end, come back and do it again, over and over. ("Cruising") or just go on a lot of joyrides.
If I had an xbox or ps4 back then, I'd have probably been on that instead.
Re: (Score:3)
They don't go outside (Score:5, Insightful)
If my son is any gauge, the reason they don't drive is because it would require them to leave the house. Whenever we go anywhere, he is always concerned with how far he will be from his computer. The iPad and 3DS will only hold off the DTs for so long...
Re:They don't go outside (Score:4, Insightful)
When I was a teen, one of the main functions of driving (and borrowing my parent's car) was to go be with my friends, hanging out or whatever. Otherwise I was stuck at home by myself.
My own kids are constantly texting, emailing, playing online with, or using other means to interact with their friends without physical proximity. They can do it from anywhere they have wireless connectivity, even when traveling out of town.
Again, back when I was a teen, we had a single land line telephone. If it wasn't in use, It was possible to call and just talk to one of my friends at a time, provided they were home, their line wasn't busy, and they were willing to be tethered by a cord to the phone's location in the house.
Amazon, add another to the list... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not a bad thing. (Score:3)
DWY is only slightly better than DWI, because it's not a choice.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Teens and adults driving less: yes (Score:3)
Additionally, there didn't used to be such an abbreviation as "NEET", but now I hear it all the time. More kids are staying home longer (even into their late twenties, much to the dismay of their parents) or even coming back home (much more to the dismay of their parents) because they're just not making it out in the world. Unless supplied with a vehicle and money for fuel by their cash-strapped parents, they're not driving anywhere.
It seems to me that the Age of the Automobile, as a lifestyle, is coming to an end. Gasoline is never going to be under a dollar a gallon ever again. Will it be resurrected as the Age of the Electric Automobile (or some other alternative fuel source? Mr. Fusion, anyone?) or will we all be riding bicycles or using public transportation or some other non-personal transportation option? Are we all destined to become herd animals? Sad.
Let's look at inflation adjusted costs. (Score:4, Informative)
Driving isn't fun anymore (Score:5, Insightful)
Another factor - most driving is no longer 'fun' - It's fighting traffic. it's a job.
The only place you don't see traffic these days is car commercials.
I've made gradual changes to lessen crude oil use (Score:3, Interesting)
My decision to live in a place where I can depend on public transportation was influenced by that knowledge.
The lack of attachment to a physical place, knowing that I can continue to nurture my friendships from a distance, through the internet, also played a big part.
They're getting around by helicopter... (Score:3, Funny)
...parent. Cars are for independence, the world of helicopter parenting doesn't allow for that.
Contributing factors to my driving decline (Score:5, Informative)
Now, this is over 15 years, not 10.
Internet
Sure, let's get that out of the way. I don't have to go out as much to buy things, so I'd say that lowered my annual driving average by about 5%-10%
Gasoline/Petrol prices
Absolutely. When the price of gasoline went over $2.50/gal (that was 2005-ish) my leisure driving went to almost none. That was easily 25%-30% of my annual driving.
More environmentally conscious
Over the last 15 years I have definitely become more environmentally conscious and tried to drive less as well as use less electricity, etc.
Moved closer to work
I live in a medium-sized rural university town (about 50,000 without students, about 80,000 with them). I work for the university and moved to my present location in 1999. Before that I was living about three miles away and would drive to work daily. Now, I have a 15 minute walk apartment door to office door (my office, not the outer door). That cut my driving down by more than a third.
So my driving habits over the last 15 years have dropped by roughly 65%-75%. I only drive when I need to run errands or I am going to visit friends farther than I can comfortably walk. I might spend $120-$130 on gas in a "busy" month (about 1,000 miles worth), but on average I spend about $60-$65 (about 500 miles worth). I used to average between 2,000 - 3,000 miles per month when gas was under $2.50/gal. I did a lot more road trips for fun and drove back and forth to work (often multiple times a day), as well as shopping trips and other errands. People around where I live have also gotten worse driving habits over that time, so that's another reason I stay off the roads. Where I live half the population of drivers has less than eight years of driving experience, and it seems they never really learned the rules of the road, anyway. Hell, it's bad enough as a pedestrian!
communication (Score:4)
When I was just out of highschool we'd drive around looking for a party. Spent half the night doing that... stopping by this house or that house... We couldn't call from the car as there were no cellphones and even if we did land line phones were often not picked up at a loud party. With modern texting/tweeting etc, teens know where the party's immediately. If it changes venue they know right away. It's just one more activity computers have made more efficient.
Actually I do, but not for any particular reason (Score:3)
My commute is now a 15 minute jaunt on the highway to work, this is not by design, nor is it because I moved closer. (In fact 8 years ago I moved farther away from my current place of employment) back then I had a 30 minute commute, and I suppose if I was still living in that one bedroom apartment (with two kids would be hell) I'd have a 10 minute commute as opposed to the 15...
I drive mostly to and from work, other times, not so much.
Gas prices actually around here gas prices have gone up slightly in the past 10 years, but really, when a look on the historical gas price list. in 2004 gas was roughly 70c/l it was 2005 when gas first peaked 100c/l, this morning it was a comfortable 99.7c/l on my drive in to work. So gas prices are slightly higher, but not as bad as they were 5 years ago, and my salary in the same time has more than doubled. It's settled down. hasn't hit 130 in a long time.
Shopping has become less of a hassle as well. It used to be that when I wanted to buy a new motherboard, it took driving around to about 3-4 different stores to get pricing because not every store had an up to date website. that's greatly improved in the past 10 years, same with shopping for furniture, TVs, etc. What used to be a 10 stop shopping trip is usually down to 1-2 now.
10 years ago I was also single, online dating wasn't really all that big yet, so if I wanted to meet someone I had to go out and cruise around. heck back when I was a teenager that was the primary way to meet girls. Now a lot of people meet people online. heck I met my wife of 8 years online. Also I no longer have to drive as much to go on dates with my wife, as we live together. so that's another.
Also entertainment. it used to be more entertaining to go to the mall, the theatre, whatever the kids of the area did to hang out and usually ended up driving there. now, it's more why drive to hang out, we can hangout online and chat online. so no need for physical contact anymore. (which is another study's results that there isn't enough person-person contact with teenagers anymore.
frankly. There has been a lot of societal changes in the last 10 years, and a lot of that results in less driving. plus the whole recession that hit in 2008, kinda put a damper on being able to afford a car in your teenage years.
The fun is gone (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3)
Mr Obvious at work? (Score:3)
Gas is expensive
Insurance is expensive
Jobs are hard to come by, especially for teens
They grew up socializing on-line so r/l meets are not as important now
Did i mention jobs are hard to come by?
Driver Education (Score:4, Interesting)
Driver education was a standard part of the (summer) high school curriculum when I was coming up so very long ago. I don't think that's the case anymore, and and as a result it's not as accessible as it once was. It's much less a thing you do automatically when you hit 16.
That, and kids are living more of their lives virtually now. More "tactile" skills like driving and fixing mechanical things aren't as cool as the ones involved in manipulating what you see on your screen.
Main reasons I see between my son and I (Score:3)
I have a teenager and I can answer these questions from his perspective vs. when I was in high school 20 years ago.
1) Home entertainment is so much better. He can play his x-box, talk to friends on live, play on the internet. All of this is in lieu of personal contact or face-to-face conversation. When I was a kid, if I wanted to play with someone, I had to do it at their house. The only way to get there was driving or riding a bike.
2) Cell phones allow for faster communication. Relationships which were either face to face or on the phone when I was a kid. Now you can have face to face, Skype, video chat, etc. on your cell phone along with texting and other forms of media on your hand held which makes it much easier for them to maintain a relationship with much less effort.
3) Effort. When I wanted to do something, I had to leave the house or host people at my place. This was effort and sometimes was taxing. Most kids now days see the effort in hosting people at your house or going to someone else's house as a waste due to the reasons #1 and #2 being the way to get your human interaction.
4) Legal issues. Shit I used to do when I was a kid is now illegal. I am not talking drugs or anything like that, I mean like meeting up with friends at a jr. high and playing some ball, or 100 other things I used to do. We live in an extremely litigious society and as such things that were simple when I was a kid, you cannot do anything and kids are trained from a young age to rely on mommy and daddy to do things for them as they are the only ones who can take a risk.
5) Cost. While this is somewhat true, I don't think it is that much different than when I was a kid. While gas costs 3 times more, they also make double the amount of money at work due to minimum wage increases. Insurance is the same (dollar for dollar) as when I was driving and when my son is driving. Cars cost the same (a good $3k car is still there for people to get for kids). It all depends on the quantity of money and how much you make your kid responsible for their costs.
At the end of the day, there are many other things, but I remark #1 and #2 as the biggest differences between generations. If I didn't see a friend, I didn't talk to them. Now there is a dozen way to talk to a friend, and never leave the couch. Thus driving was the only way for me to see them.
Lot more home work, lot less jobs (Score:3)
It boils down to an eroding middle class due to massive wealth inequality, but we're not allowed to talk about that (the same folks who benefit the most also own the media outlets). It's fun to watch these pundits that aren't allowed to talk about what's really happening (or who've got the blinders on too tightly to see) try to come with reasons for it.
I just never started... (Score:3)
I just never bothered (I'm in my early 30s). I lived in suburbs near big cities, or in big cities proper all my life across a handful of countries, and there was rarely anywhere I needed to go that I couldn't reach via public transportation of some sort, with the very occasional (2-3 times a year) place I'd just take a cab to.
There's a few annoyances (when moving I hire movers, but if I'm packing myself, carrying all the empty boxes and packing material from wherever I get it is a pain), but all around its just a whole lot less worry.
Didn't save me any money though, considering how brutally expensive a houses near main subway lines are though. So its really just because I prefer this lifestyle.
Re: (Score:3)