<p>$35 to fill once a week. That’s with an 45 minute commute (each way) 4 times a week. In high school, I only needed to fill up once every few weeks and gas has actually fallen since I was in high school (I distinctly remember it being over $4 when I went to go fill up the first time after getting my license, now it hovers around 3.10-3.50… and I make a lot more now than I did then lol).</p>
<p>Yay for 30+ mpg :D</p>
<p>We never had to buy gas for our S’s. They worked enough hours at the grocery store to pay for their gas and other extraneous stuff (electronics, going out for pizza/burgers with friends, movies, dating, etc).</p>
<p>Like some of you said, high school may have gotten tougher, but that does not explain the drop in teenage unemployment. I had an extremely challenging junior and senior year and I still worked. This generation of kids can work, but they choose not to. Laziness is becoming the societal norm. I’m not speaking for everyone…there are a lot who volunteer and do other great things instead of working…but the majority (at least from what I’ve seen) just don’t feel like working.</p>
<p>In some cases that may be true but I think it’s also that a lot of parents prioritize all the things they think will make a difference to their kids’ college admissions–demanding advanced classes, a whole slew of ECs that might look appealing on an application, etc. The parents would rather their kids stay up late doing homework than be exhausted from flipping burgers or bagging groceries. It’s just a difference in perspective.</p>
<p>ucb~ you are probably right, if kids had to walk further than the parking lot, then teen obesity rates would likely go down.</p>
<p>Since you have never met my d, I will take your comments as generalizations for society in general. My d, while rarely walking places she could have walked to, is not one that deals with obesity. She was on both the cross country and track teams in high school, is a size 5/6at 6 ft tall and maybe 130 lbs. She continues to run and is on the crew at Tulane. She just ran her first marathon, and did it faster than she expected to. I don’t think I have to worry about obesity rates with her.</p>
<p>I’m 17, 18 in March, and I don’t even have my permit. Literally everyone I know went out and got their permits as soon as they turned 15 and their licenses as soon as they turned 16. It would be nice to know how to drive, but unlike them, I knew I was never going to get a car, and there’s really no reason I would ever have to drive right now (just generally because of the way my family “works”, I guess). My mom didn’t ever really want me to have a job throughout high school, and the two cars my family does have are always needed to pick someone up or drop someone off. I wouldn’t ever really need to use a car, nor would I ever be able to. Any ECs I need to get to, I get a ride to and from. </p>
<p>I know I need to learn eventually, but it’s not really a priority right now. I’m not going to have a car of my own for a long time, especially because I’m going off to college and everything…it’s not like I would really need (or be able to have, usually) a car there, either.</p>
<p>My child attends Potsdam. At school everything is located on campus therefore, no need for a car. Why add an extra expense while paying for college. When home my child shares a car with me.</p>
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<p>Certainly not now. But I have seen people who were athletic in high school, college, and shortly after college, but other time commitments later squeezed out the time dedicated to sports and exercise. If no physical activity is part of the daily routine, then the person in question gets no exercise at all.</p>
<p>Indeed, a runner can get extra running in by running some place, since that overlays the sports and exercise time on top of commuting time.</p>
<p>@Metfantb-</p>
<p>I think it is unfair to claim that high school kids are lazy as an explanation for teen employment dropping, besides the fact it is what people have been saying about teens since time began, it also doesn’t look at the reality of teen life these days.</p>
<p>First of all, high school is way tougher than when most of us went to school, I am staggered at the levels many kids face. There is this incredible pressure on kids that just is nothing like we faced. School itself is tougher, with obsessions with GPA and getting into the ‘right’ college, packing on honors and AP classes, and schools proving how efficient they are by dumping hours and hours of homeworks on the kids. My son was/is a serious music student, and a lot of the kids in the program he was in were doing honors level AP classes, had 4.0 GPA’s, and were doing EC’s and doing serious music, which required many hours of practice a day, plus the programs they were in…very few of them worked, because there simply wasn’t time, and from talking to parents in my own community, this is true for most kids in high school. What used to be considered optional EC’s have become “mandatory”, so they obsess with those as well as GPA’s (personally, I rank the hysteria college admissions departments have promoted as being as scuzzy as the accident lawyers who advertise on tv)…and their lives are incredibly full, kids are up until 2am finishing homework because of everything they are doing, and this is not outliers,this represents a lot of kids.</p>
<p>Given that, I am not surprised kids aren’t working more, I just don’t think they have the time (and sadly, conventional wisdom is that working isn’t looked at favorably by college admissions departments…I don’t know how true that is, but if it is then shame on the AD’s on that as well). </p>
<p>The other factor is that the economy has been so bad that jobs teens would normally do, working retail, working in fast food and so forth, are being taken by jobholders looking for any kind of work. Around where I live , jobs in supermarkets, retail stores and fast food restaurants have been taken over by adults or increasingly by the flood of immigrants from Mexico and South America…so the opportunity may not be there as it once was. When I was in high school, the local car wash was pretty much all high school kids, now it is all adults, almost all recent immigrants.</p>
<p>As far as kids not driving, there was a whole article about this in Road and Track, and what they are finding is the culture has changed. When I was growing up, cars were a big deal, and getting the license was considered a big deal, and getting that first car, it was freedom, ability to get around. I don’t know whether it is social networking with all its ‘freedom’ to socialize, or whether kids have become disillusioned about cars, see them as a drab utility (not all, gearhead culture still exists, as do kids who love cars), they also have a lot more of an ecological view than we did growing up, with realizations of the cost of gas, both financially and otherwise and I think that works into it as well. It is a different world than we lived in and I think it has to be looked at in context.</p>
<p>But there are those teens who get driving licenses only so that they have a better chance of landing certain jobs… and if they did land a job that required a driving license (regardless of what other credentials it requires; I’m fairly certain some driving jobs can be performed by high schoolers, if only that of a pizza man) they will drive more on the job than off it.</p>
<p>Actually, while finances and technology are factors, there’s a larger cultural shift away from driving that began long before the recession and mobile technology and extends well beyond teenagers. The revitalization of urban centers and transformation of office parks and malls into walkable, multi-use communities is sweeping the nation. Anyone who’s spent any time in a major city these days knows young people are out a lot; they’re not spending their free time always sitting behind computers.</p>
<p>The suburbanization model of the 20th century just didn’t work out so new generations (and increasing numbers of retirees) are choosing walkable, transit-oriented lifestyles because it makes them happier and healthier. Even when they start having kids many are remaining with the walkable lifestyle, though they may move to a better school district than the hip urban neighborhood they previously lived in offered.</p>
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<p>I agree completely that the suburbanization of the 20th century was by and large a failure. And I personally would only live in a relatively urban neighborhood on a bus line and from which I could walk to grocery stores and a few restaurants, at the very least. But I think you may be overstating the “sweeping” transformation that might be taking place. At least where I live, it’s a rare occurrence that a person’s job is in walking distance of where they live. And even the “New Urbanism”-style communities you describe often require cars. Maybe the situation is better in big cities well-served by public transportation, but I don’t think that’s the reality for most people, sadly.</p>
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<p>I don’t completely agree with this. Yes, there is a sizable group of people who obsess about GPAs and getting into the right colleges, and even getting into state flagships has become harder, but it is possible to not succumb to the “incredible pressure.” Remember that the vast majority of high-school students and their parents are not on CC worrying about whether an A- in AP Calculus is going to hurt their chances of admission into elite universities, or whether admissions counselors will look askance at their weak assortment of ECs.</p>
<p>I love the forum title - “Fewer teens are driving because they are broke.” (They are driving for other reasons. ;))</p>
<p>Or maybe they found a way to steal closer to home. :)</p>
<p>I know a couple of younger people, one 24 and one 34, who didn’t get driver’s licenses. They both get around by bus but they also rely on their parents a lot. Both have used it as an excuse for not looking for jobs, also.</p>
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<p>Agree. The world according to CC is not the world “most” high school seniors experience.</p>
<p>We don’t live in an area with good, convenient mass transportation. So most kids here learn to drive before they are out of high school. Our own kids had a lot of ECs, so we bought them cars. I worked 12 hour shifts and couldn’t always be around to drive them, and I would not want them to be dependent upon other families. It was the right decision for our family. </p>
<p>If we lived in an area where we could walk or take public transportation, I could see how owning a car could almost be a liability as it relates to parking, insurance, gas, etc.</p>
<p>I know several teens here in suburban DC who waited until age 17 or 18 to get licenses. In several cases the teens did not want to deal with the heavy traffic and stress of driving in this area. </p>
<p>Both of my kids were licensed at age 16. Sadly we live in an area with no public transportation…</p>
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Good point. I wasn’t suggesting there’s a huge number of people who do or even can work near enough to where they live that they can walk. I used to do that and actually found it a little claustrophobic. I just meant that, in rapidly increasing numbers, people are choosing to live where they can walk to restaurants, bars, their kids’ school, etc., maybe get on a train or bus to get to work, or maybe bike. Bike commuting has skyrocketed in popularity in the past 10 years and a lot of cities are building infrastructure to support it.</p>
<p>I think it’s harder to see all this in more conventional auto-dependent areas, but where the basic infrastructure is already in place - transit, density, walkability - we’re seeing skyrocketing demand nationwide to live in or build such communities while the exurban acre yard lifestyle popular 20 years ago is struggling to stay afloat.</p>
<p>DS1 did not get his license until 18. He wasn’t too interested but we were not going to add the expense for teen auto insurance… He was involved in several ECs including marching band. There were several parents in the area that had no problem providing transportation. So we just rotated on who would shuttle the kids. It worked out just fine. Now that he is in college he has a used car. Works 10 hours a week at the bookstore and has had 2 paying internships for the past summers. He handles money responsibly and takes care of his car expenses. </p>
<p>DS2 is in a college sophomore and does not have a license. He had a permit and let it expire. He is in a college town that has a rail line that runs between the city and campus. He doesn’t have a need for a car.</p>
<p>Around here I definitely think fewer teens are getting to drive due to financial constraints, but I don’t think cars are really becoming less popular. We are selling one of our cars and will be down to one car for the next six months and nobody I know can even imagine doing that. I hardly ever drive, I lease a 2013 ford focus and I put gas in my car once every 5-6 weeks (for $35)… I live five minutes from work. So we will sell my fiance’s car and he will start dropping me off at work. I probably won’t ever drive again until we go back to two cars… probably when we have kids.</p>
<p>I am glad I know how to drive so that if he were sick or hurt I could always drive him, but I won’t miss not driving.</p>