Teens – No Driver’s License and No Car! Maybe Ever!

Getting my driver’s license was one of my early teenage rites of passage. I couldn't wait for so many reasons and it was a big day when it finally happened. As is natural in most passage experiences, there were real trials on the path to getting my license. First, I had to study the arcane details that make up the “rules of the road” to get my permit. And then came the many tests of my ability such as staying in a lane, observing pedestrians, making full stops, obeying the speed limit, and the dreaded parallel parking. But it was all worth it to get the license and become a legal driver.

For me, it was not just that I could be in charge of 2000 pounds of steel and fly down the road, but much more. Driving meant escape from the pressure cooker of our small family house and all its tensions. It meant I had status among my non-driving pals and could easily pull them together for common adventures. I could often drive to school, rising above the demeaning wait and riding on the school bus. It meant I had a new and private space for hanging out with girls and that new world of emerging sexuality. Very simply stated, a driver’s license made my world much bigger geographically and opened countless doors of discovery.

...it was a golden chariot to me.

I quickly grew attached to all the excitement and possibilities of having access to a car, and it wasn’t long before I wanted my own. My first car was a beat up, black, 57 Volkswagen. The seats were badly worn, it often smelled like gas, the windshield wipers were hardly functional, it had dings and rust on the body, and it barely had enough heat in the winter to keep the windows defrosted much less provide any comfort. But it was a golden chariot to me. That’s why I was surprised to learn that for many young people, getting a driver’s license today, much less a car is NOT the exciting rite of passage it was for me.

. . . getting a driver’s license today is NOT
the exciting rite of passage it was for me.

In 2019, StudentMoveTO, a research partnership of ten colleges and universities in Canada, surveyed 18,500 students at ten post-secondary institutions across the Toronto and Hamilton area. They discovered More than twenty-two per cent of survey respondents said they didn’t have a driver’s license. The group’s research also found that sixty-five per cent of students who did have a driver’s license didn’t own a car, and of those, just fifteen per cent indicated they would buy a car in the future. So much for golden chariots!

Some of the reasons given for avoiding car ownership and driving included good access to public transit services (83 per cent), all the costs associated with driving and owning a car (66 per cent), and the negative impacts of driving on the environment (50 per cent).

When you realize that with a few taps on your smartphone you can call up Uber and Lyft and quickly go where every you like without paying car insurance, parking, maintenance, and car repairs, it does make sense. Not to mention the availability of electric scooters and bikes appearing everywhere in major cities.

You can read more about this topic in a recent article in the Toronto Star or on the website of StudentMoveTO.

I do get the world is changing, and less driving for all of us is really a good thing. But sitting here in this moment, I do miss my golden chariot, and all the trials and joys that came with it.

Do you remember your first "golden chariot?

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Mentoring for Boys Driving Fast

In the Man-Making book, I profile a lot of men who turn their personal interests into opportunities for connecting with young guys. This provides a chance for shared interests, training in important life skills, hang time with a man or men, and for the development of a male ally. In a world experiencing an epidemic of, what I term, under-male-nourished-boys, this approach to guiding boys toward a responsible manhood is full of wins for all the males involved. Sometimes it even saves lives.

Jay Gubrud is a friend of mine, and a man who loves driving BMW automobiles. He is a member of the BMW Car Club of Minnesota, a group that has a focus on safe and skillful driving. Through the club, Jay learned the National Highway Traffic Administration statistics say motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death among teenagers in the United States. In addition, the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention reports crash risk for drivers sixteen and seventeen years old is three times as great as it is for a nineteen and twenty-year-olds. In every age category, the car crash and death statistics are worse for boys than girls. Those numbers got Jay’s attention and he decided to do something.

In every age category,
the car crash and death statistics
are worse for boys than girls.

Like most teens, Jay had developed an early love of driving fast. He said he wished he’d had a high-performance driving program available to him in adolescence, when his love of driving was blooming. In Jay’s words, "My dad had no interest in driving or performance driving so I had to learn from the school of hard knocks. If there would have been someone steering me toward safe driving at that point in my life, I’d have had a lot fewer problems." Just like Jay, most teens find out the limitations of their driving skills on public roads, surrounded by other vehicles, in dangerous real-world conditions, and often with the police involved. He saw a big need to help teenagers become more skillful drivers.

As a direct result of his passion, Jay partnered with the Minnesota Chapter of the BMW Car Club of America to create the Safe Teen Driving Program. Initially, the program put fourteen Minneapolis and St. Paul area teens in the capable hands of instructors from the BMW Club. These people led the students through classroom and on-road training. Instead of taking risks on the street, the kids were able to develop their skills and discover the limits of their vehicles on a safe and custom-made track. Since that first event, hundreds of Minnesota teens have successfully completed this program. While all teens, regardless of gender, need to learn how to become the best possible drivers, young male drivers, with their tendencies for testing their limits and risk-taking in general, stand to gain the most from this kind of training.

Because of his passion for driving, Jay not only helped to create a solid mentoring program for kids, in the process, he very likely prevented serious injury or death for a teenage boy or girl. His story gets even better, however. The BMW Car Club of America used much of the Safe Teen Driving Program in the development of a national program now called Street Survival.

To learn what causes teenage drivers to be such risky drivers, check out this list of primary risk factors. Also, consider how an interest, hobby, or passion of yours might touch the lives of a few kids in your community. You just never know where it might take you.

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OMG! Teens, Texting, and Driving! STANDUP!

Did you know that car crashes are the number one killer of teens in the US? That amounts to about 5000 kids dying every year, making up twelve percent of all individuals involved in car crash deaths. Here is another number to chew on. In a survey by The Allstate Foundation, titled: Chronic: A Report on Teen Safe Driving, fifty-six percent of teens say they make or answer cell phone calls while driving. AND, and this is the OMG part (that's Oh My God for non-texters), thirteen percent of teens say they make or respond to text messages while driving!

The report also found that teens have the lowest percentage of seat belt use, are most vulnerable to peer pressure from others in the car, and are very uncomfortable speaking up when friends aren't driving safely. Now that is a prescription for danger . . .  and the data is worse for teen boys. It's really a call for some serious man-making.

There is help in the works and it's called the STANDUP Act. The Safe Teen and Novice Driver Uniform Protection Act of 2009 was introduced in April 2009 by Reps. Tim Bishop (D-NY), Michael Castle (R-DE), and Chris Van Hollen, Jr. (D-MD).  This legislation would establish minimum federal requirements for state GDL laws (National Graduated Driver Licensing) and encourage all states to adopt GDL laws that meet the minimum requirements within 3 years. Here is a quick overview the STANDUP Act:

States must meet the following requirements under the STANDUP Act:

Three stages of licensing – learner’s permit, intermediate stage, and full licensure – should be used

Age 16 should be the earliest age for entry into the learner’s permit process

Nighttime driving while unsupervised should be restricted during the learner’s permit and intermediate stages, until full licensure at age 18

Driving while using communication devices (cell phone calls, texting) should be prohibited at least until full licensure at age 18

Unrestricted, full licensure should occur no earlier than age 18

Passengers should be restricted – no more than one non-familial passenger under age 21 unless a licensed driver over age 21 is in the vehicle – until full licensure at age 18

The Allstate Foundation research indicates that in states with comprehensive GDL programs in place, fatal crashes of 16 year old drivers has fallen by 40% . . . but that is not good enough.

If you have teen drivers in your life, it really is time to have that conversation about cell phones and driving . . . and then to be careful what you're modeling around phones and driving in their presence. You can also go to the Allstate Teen Driver Website for all kinds of helpful resources. They have data, instructional videos, petitions to sign, and even a Parent-Teen Driving Contract.

Let's all do what we can 
to prevent more OMG's