Fewer teens are rushing to get their driver’s licenses, and one result may be an almost 50 percent drop in teen crashes.
Jon Peaslee could have gotten his driver’s license at 16. By law. But the very thought of it made mom Kim Peaslee cringe, so she didn’t encourage the idea. And he didn’t press.
Which seemed a little odd.
“Gosh, I was champing at the bit to do driver’s ed,” she said. “But we just figured we weren’t going to push it until he was really ready for it and wanting to take the responsibility for it.”
Jon didn’t get his license at 17, either.
Now 18, he’s in the middle of the process — a driver’s ed graduate, on a learner’s permit, getting ready to send out for his driving test. If all goes according to plan, he’ll be a Maine driver well before he turns 18 and a half.
He’s glad he waited.
“I wouldn’t say I’m stuck here, but I’m basically stuck here,” said Jon, a senior at Mountain Valley High School in Rumford. “It’s a good thing. I’m not getting in that much trouble.”
A generation ago, his license-less status would have been unusual. Today, he has more company.
Maine teens are waiting longer to get their driver’s licenses, sometimes into their 20s.
It’s a national trend that experts say is part cost, part Internet, part the-world-is-changing.
“If everyone’s parents are driving them around, it can’t be uncool anymore,” said Rhonda Jamison, an assistant professor of psychology who specializes in child development at the University of Maine at Farmington.
Maine and the nation
The percentage of young drivers has steadily shrunk in recent years, according to a Sun Journal analysis of Maine population and driver’s license data.
The largest drop was among 20-year-olds. In 2000, 93 percent had licenses. In 2013, only 79 percent did.
Nineteen-year-olds weren’t far behind, falling from 84 percent in 2000 to 71 percent in 2013.
Eighteen-year-olds, like Jon, dropped from 75 percent in 2000 to 65 percent in 2013.
In comparison, 17- and 16- year-olds dipped only slightly, from 59 percent to 54 percent for 17-year-olds and from 29 percent to 27 percent for 16-year-olds.
Overall, 67 percent of Mainers ages 16 to 20 had their licenses in 2000. By 2013, 60 percent did.
Maine’s change mirrors national trends.
One of the most often-cited studies was published in 2011 by the University of Michigan’s Transportation Research Institute. It found driving declined between 1983 and 2008 in the U.S. for people under 40. The biggest declines were among teenagers.
In 1983, about 87 percent of 19-year-olds had licenses. That dropped to 75 percent in 2008.
Eighteen-year-olds fell from 80 percent to 65 percent.
Seventeen-year-olds fell from 69 percent to 50 percent.
Sixteen-year-olds dipped from 46 percent to 31 percent.
A follow-up study in 2013 asked young people why they weren’t driving. They said they were too busy to get a driver’s license, a car cost too much, they could get around another way, they were concerned about driving’s impact on the environment or they were able to do what they needed online.
Twenty-two percent said they would never get a license.
In Maine, some experts noticed the decline but attributed it to demographics: Fewer teens in Maine meant fewer teen drivers.
“We’ve seen in our (driving) schools statewide the numbers dropping year after year after year,” said Bob Mullen, who runs 18 driver’s ed programs around the state, including in Auburn, Lisbon, Poland and the Oxford Hills area. “There just aren’t enough kids.”
Maine has seen a population shift toward older people. Between 2000 and 2010, the state gained more than 122,000 people over 45 and lost more than 69,000 people under 45, according to the U.S. Census. Between 2000 and 2013, the state lost more than 2,000 16-year-olds alone.
But regardless of the number of teens in Maine, the percentage of young drivers has declined.
Some say cost has a lot to do with it.
It can cost $400 to $500 for driver’s ed — and a course is required for anyone under 18 to get a driver’s license in Maine. After that there’s gas to buy, insurance to maintain, a car to keep running.
“I have to pay somebody else $430 bucks to teach my kid to drive? Yeah, that didn’t happen. I was a single mom,” said Stacey Hall of Sabattus. “And my son still doesn’t have his license. He’s living in Portland, using public transportation. Twenty-five years old, no license.”
Hall said her son wants to get his license “eventually.” Her daughter recently took driver’s ed and got her learner’s permit. She’s 23.
Since the family’s finances have improved, Hall’s 16-year-old stepdaughter, Zaryn, has been able to take driver’s ed. When Zaryn gets her license, she’ll likely be at least 10 years younger than her stepbrother when he gets his.
Others say cost isn’t so much a factor as maturity. More parents, mindful of the dangers of the road or their teenager’s tendency to be distracted by a cellphone, are opting not to let their children pursue a license until they’re older.
“I’ve noticed parents at least holding them until 16 to get their (learner’s) permit. In Maine you can get it at 15. Sometimes that year makes a big difference,” said Paul Martin, co-owner of the Martin Driving Academy based in Lewiston.
In some cases, teens themselves realize they aren’t mature enough.
“I’ve seen a lot waiting until they’re 17 because they don’t want to drive,” Martin said. “I think they knew they weren’t ready. When they know they want to drive and they feel they’re ready to drive, that’s when they start bugging the parents to take driver’s ed.”
And even if they are ready, some teenagers don’t feel the need to get a license.
“This generation of teenagers has cellphones and Internet access, which allows the social communication that used to be only available through face-to-face interaction,” said Jamison at UMF. “For this generation, having a car isn’t necessarily seen as having access to independence.”
She believes a number of reasons are likely behind the drop in teen driving, including the economy and world-changing technology. And it’s a trend, she believes, that could snowball: Some kids put off driving. Driving becomes less the thing to do. More kids put off driving.
“It becomes more common to count on parents for drop-offs and pickups,” she said. “If that’s more common for 17-, 18-, 19-year-olds, that would minimize the stigma. When I was 16, it was completely uncool for mom to pick you up outside the dance. If there’s a shift in that, well, that’s not the case anymore.”
The waiting game
There are both pros and cons to teenagers waiting to get behind the wheel.
Cons: When it comes to safety, once 18, drivers don’t have to follow many of the same rules as younger teens, which means they can drive with friends or drive in the middle of the night. They also don’t have to take a driver’s ed course, which means they may be less prepared and may spend more to be insured.
“You can go right down to the DMV and take your test,” said Larry Caron, owner of Roy’s Driver & Rider Education based in Lewiston. “We do see an awful lot of that, especially in the city setting, where they take the test and they just get a couple of hours of private lessons from us.”
At 21, Mainers don’t have to log the 70 hours of driving time that younger people do before they go for their licenses. That means they have no need to drive with an instructor, no need to drive with mom or dad.
And once young drivers hit 18 or 21, it’s harder for parents to supervise or guide them.
“I think they should have a license at least through their whole senior year,” said Carlene Sirois, co-owner of Sirois Driving School, which runs classes in Farmington and Norridgewock. “Because if they’re going on to college or the military or whatever their next stage is in life, there’s no parent there. I mean, I wouldn’t want to send my kid off to college with a brand new driver’s license. Kind of scary.”
Driving also fosters responsibility and independence, both important for teenagers.
“It gives me more freedom to go with my friends and everything,” said 16-year-old Zaryn Hall. “I won’t have to rely on my parents.”
Pros: Older students are generally more mature. They’re more likely to understand the dangers of driving and their responsibilities. They’re more likely to take driving seriously.
And parents hope they’re more likely to put down the cellphone and pay attention to the road.
“I think today’s kids aren’t as ready as what we possibly were 20 years ago,” said Peaslee, whose son has waited until 18 to get his license. “Reflecting back on my driving experience, there were no cellphones. We just weren’t as quick to get into a car with a group of kids. We weren’t as distracted. Today’s kids are just so much more into electronics.”
Fewer teen drivers may also mean fewer crashes. Between 2003 and 2014, the number of crashes involving a driver 16 to 20 years old fell from 8,182 to 4,572, according to the Maine Bureau of Highway Safety. That’s a 44 percent drop.
Highway Safety Director Lauren Stewart believes there are several reasons for the decline. Maine’s graduated license system has given young drivers more practice behind the wheel in recent years, as has driver’s ed, she said. The state, AAA and other groups have worked together over the past four or five years to educate teens and their parents about the risks of driving and ways to improve safety.
And there are fewer teen drivers to get into a crash.
“That certainly could be a piece of it. Rarely can you point to one particular thing and say ‘That’s it, that’s the reason,'” she said. “In this instance I think it’s a combination of things.”
Waiting can also save money. Three years without a license means three years without having to pay for car insurance, car maintenance or gas.
Older drivers also don’t have to attend driver’s ed, though some parents and instructors disagree whether skipping the course is worth it because graduates can get a discount on their car insurance and the education itself is valuable. But some families don’t have the money, no matter the course’s worth.
Jon Peaslee held off on getting his license so he could skip driver’s ed. Ultimately, he changed his mind and decided the course might be worth it.
So this past summer he enrolled in a class. He got his permit soon after and hopes to get his license this month or next.
It feels, he said, like it took him longer than everybody else to go for his license. But that doesn’t mean he’d advise rushing into it.
“If you really want to, then yeah, go for it,” he said. “But if you’re on the fence, just wait.”
Fewer teen drivers may also mean fewer crashes. Between 2003 and 2014, the number of crashes involving a driver 16 to 20 years old fell from 8,182 to 4,572, according to the Maine Bureau of Highway Safety. That’s a 44 percent drop.
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