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Gen Z refusing to learn how to drive - but Uber is not to blame
The number of teens and young people driving has plummeted as they complain of the unaffordable costs of owning a car.
In 1983, 87 percent of 19-year-olds had a driver's license, significantly more than the 69 percent who did so in 2022, according to the Federal Highway Administration.
Youths that don't drive say they only use ridesharing apps like Uber and Lyft occasionally - and are fine with relying on public transport and lifts from their parents to get where they need to be.
'It's extraordinarily rare, demographically, for this to be going backwards,' Tyson Jominy, vice president of data and analytics at J.D. Power, told The Wall Street Journal.
New vehicle car prices have risen more than 32 percent since 2019, and now have an average cost of $44,604.
Teens are no longer learning to drive at the same rate as previous generations
Even if young drivers are able to purchase a car, they face spiraling auto insurance costs.
Three in ten drivers aged 18 to 24 saw their insurance rise by more than $300 over the past year, a J.D. Power survey showed.
The price hikes are more than those inflicted on any other age group.
'It's a really big financial burden,' high-school senior John Camou told the Journal.
'I was spending a lot of time working just to get a car to be able to drive to work.'
Camou, from Birmingham, Alabama, said many of his classmates have yet to get their licenses because of the costs involved in owning and maintaining a car.
Despite the rise of ride-hailing apps such as Uber and Lyft, research from Johns Hopkins University suggests that teens are only using such services for a small portion of their journeys.
Instead parents are plugging the gaps.
IT operations manager Chris Moore says he still drives his 23-year-old daughter to soccer practice five times a week as she does not yet have a license.
'My job is to be a taxi,' the 52-year-old told the outlet.
Research from the University of Michigan's Transportation Research Institute concluded that today's parents are more willing to drive their adolescent children to avoid them using bikes and public transport when they don't have their own vehicles.
As well as day-to-day travelling, young people forgoing their licenses also impacts their travel plans.
Adolescents blame the rising cost of vehicles, maintenance and auto insurance
The average US driver will pay $2,469 a year for car insurance by the end of 2024
The number of Americans aged 16 to 25 planning to make a road trip dropped 24 percent in the last year alone, according to research from GWI.
Although costs have hit young adults hard, they are also rising for all drivers.
Auto insurance prices are set to rise by 22 percent for the average car owner by the end of 2024, new Insurify data has revealed.
The average annual premium will rise to $2,469 by year-end, the report found.
Missouri, Minnesota and California are set to see the steepest year-on-year rises, all seeing premiums jump by more than 50 percent.