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WILKES-BARRE — Have you ever driven a car in the snow with chains on the tires?
How about a car with a push-button transmission?
Or have you ever gotten behind the wheel of a 1964 Plymouth Valiant where you pulled into a gas station and told the attendant — yes, they had attendants back then — to check the gas and fill the oil?
If not, young folks, you ain’t ever driven.
I bring this up because new research from the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety shows that more than 60% of teens these days are getting their driver’s licenses before the age of 18 — an 11% increase since 2012.
Dr. David Yang, executive director of the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, says many teens are getting licensed before the age of 18, which means more of Generation Z is learning to drive under the protection of state graduated driver licensing programs and parental supervision.
The new AAA Foundation study surveyed young adults ages 18-24 to determine when they obtained their license and found:
• Nationally, 40.8% got their license at or before age 16.
• 60.3% got their license before the age of 18.
• Only half — 49.8% — of teens in large cities obtain their license before the age of 18, compared with nearly two-thirds of those in less urbanized areas.
• Fewer than a quarter — 22.3% — of teens in the Northeast reported getting their license at or before age 16, while only 56% did so before age 18.
In Pennsylvania
The Pennsylvania Graduated Driver Licensing Program has helped to boost teen driver safety through increasing behind-the-wheel training requirements, placing a limit on the number of passengers a young driver can transport, and making not wearing a seat belt a primary offense for young drivers and passengers under 18.
All states have in place graduated driver licensing systems for teen drivers ages 16 and 17 to help them gradually learn the rules of the road under less risky conditions.
According to PennDOT data:
• There were 85,736 crashes involving at least one 16- to 19-year-old driver in Pennsylvania, resulting in 530 fatalities, from 2014-2018 statewide.
• Of those crashes, more than 30,000 involved the teen driver speeding and over 14,000 crashes involved distracted driving.
Whew!
Thank goodness these statistics weren’t kept “back in the day,” as they say. If they were, many rules and regulations might have been changed, making it more difficult to get a driver’s license.
I have first-hand knowledge of this, and I ain’t braggin.’
Just about every kid back then anticipated getting their driver’s license. The only event more anticipated was reaching the legal drinking age.
Kids wanted to drive — parents weren’t so sure. Getting the keys to dad’s car for the first time was always an anxious moment — for dad, and mom, but not the young driver. No sirree, we were setting out on our first car date, which quite possibly could include finding a secluded, non-police patrolled spot for a make-out session.
Returning home, mom and dad would ask, “So, how was your date?” You would invariably lie, or at least omit the details, like how long it took you to de-fog the windows, resulting in missing curfew.
Those were the days alright. Kids took chances. Yes, kids drank underage and drove. Many of my generation would drive to Kirkwood, NY, to Marty’s, where the drinking age was 18. And we would see all of our Luzerne County friends there. The designated driver was yet to be invented.
That’s why my buddies and I dared to ignore a sign that said: “Interstate 81 opening Monday.” This was Saturday. We moved the orange barrels blocking the entrance to I-81 and drove from Kirkwood to Wilkes-Barre.
Not only were we the first to drive on the yet-to-be pothole-riddled highway, we were, likely, the first to do so after drinking at Marty’s all night.
Like I said, it ain’t bragging.
The PennDOT/AAA information also showed reasons young adults cited for delaying getting their driver’s license:
• Nervous about driving (68.4%).
• They could do everything they needed without driving (52.6%).
• Driving was too expensive (33.3%).
• Too busy to get a license (28.9%).
• Family members did not have time to help them get their license (20.5%).
Back in my day, we couldn’t wait to drive.
Until one day my dad came home with one of the coolest cars in town — a 1969 dark green Plymouth Road Runner.
And he tossed me the keys to the ’64 Valiant with the push-button transmission.
Suddenly, driving wasn’t all that cool anymore.
