[PRCo] teens driving today

Tue Nov 26 18:48:15 EST 2013

Cost of insurance?  I know the actual cost of car ownership is dropping against inflation over the last 50 years because the maintenance costs have dramatically dropped.   We might spend a few hundred dollars a year keeping a car on the road today but what we did 50 or 60 years ago adjusted for inflation would be in the thousands today.   Ask Ed Lybarger … he still has all the records for his dad's cars.  I just remember 10,000 mile tires, monthly oil changes (the oil and lubrication alone would be $1500 in today's bucks).   

But the insurance?   I think I was paying around $200 in 1963 to insure one car for a year but I didn't keep those old bills or insurance policies.   Today I am insuring two cars for about a thousand a year.  We have a lot fewer deaths and injuries per mile today because of mandatory seat belts and air bags.   

But again, perception is reality.   If the kid thinks it's too costly, then it is.   That is why we have laws to make it compulsory.

Another thought John.   In our youth (and my dad's youth and probably your dad's teenage years), the adults had the full-time jobs and the kids had the part-time jobs as store clerks and soda jerks.   You with me?   But in the current economy, more and more adults are forced into part time work and there are fewer jobs for the teenagers.   You and I have probably both had conversations with our good buddy from McMurray over the last 40 years about kids becoming a pandered and privileged class.   That may be part of the problem, i.e. they cannot be bothered doing something.

But the reality may be that there is nothing to do.  When I was still working, the typical teenage unemployment rate (the share of their labor force that was out of work and seriously looking for work) was a little lower than twice the total unemployment rate.   So if the total rate was 4%, the rate for the kids was under 8%.   Here in Lancaster in the 1960s, the rate for kids would have been under 3%.
In 2013 the nationwide unemployment rate for 16-19 year olds is about three times the national rate for all ages … three times about 7.5 percent or, depending on the month, between 22 and 25 percent.   For 16 to 17 year olds, nationwide, it was between 25 and 29 percent in 2013.  

Maybe the kids are also not driving simply because they cannot afford it.   

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What sterotype about the Chinese John?   I wrote ASIAN, not Chinese.   Asia includes India.  

But according to NationMaster.com, China is right above the most impoverished African nations with 1 motor vehicle for every 10 people.  India has 1.2 cars for every 10 people.   The US is at the top of the heap … 7.65 vehicles for every 10 people.   

But now that you ask, this list ranks the US highest in automobile registrations per population and China 107th out of 133 nations studied.   India is 103rd on their list.  

On Nov 26, 2013, at 5:20 PM, John Swindler wrote:

> 
> The cost of insurance???  
> 
> And if don't spend money on insurance, can then spend it on the newest tech toy.
> 
> A friend from New Jersey recently passed along an observation that for several generations, a car was a status symbol to show that you have arrived in the world.  Perhaps in some circles the fancy car has been replaced with different status symbols???
> 
> Again, not talking about a dramatic shift - just a few percentage points but sufficient for Amtrak to take notice.
> 
> The really curious, we'll get off their duffs and take a few rides on some of the Corridor trains.  
> 
> John
> 
> p.s.  where do you get this stereotype that Chinese  have a higher transit habit??   Our Chinese in-laws living in Lancaster and Queens drive into Chinatown.  I'm the only one that uses the trains.  They think I'm 'strange'.  But I'm use to that.
> 
> 
> 
> 
>> From: fwschneider at comcast.net
>> Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2013 16:36:47 -0500
>> To: pittsburgh-railways at mailman.dementix.org
>> Subject: Re: [PRCo] teens driving today
>> 
>> There are so many factors, Ray, that I would not know how to unravel them.   Sometimes I think we can only guess what is really happening.
>> 
>> Having worked as a statistical analyst all my life, I love to find answers and sometimes there are too many variables.  I may be retired but I still search for the answers.   
>> 
>> Teen drivers?  Why are they declining or are they even declining?
>> 
>> 1.   If all the states have made the requirements for a license more difficult like Pennsylvania has done, that could explain why the number of licensed drivers here has declined.   Fifty years ago you could could get a learners permit and go right to the motor vehicle examiner and take the test and get a license.   I think we all new kids who drove trucks on the farm who did just that.    I don't know if the rules are the same today but when I was a kid, farm vehicles (trucks, tractors) going from field to field did not have to be licensed nor did the operator).   So kids could rack up years of experience before they were 16 if dad had a farm.   Maybe that is still true but you can no longer just walk in and get a license the same day.    
>> 
>> Today you have to have held the learners permit for a minimum of six months and have documented at least 65 hours of behind-the-wheel training.   Ten hours of it have to be at night.    Five hours have to be in rain or bad weather.  (I agree … we ought to also include snow … but it would wipe out a lot of kids.)   You must also take driver training … class room training if you are under 18.
>> 
>> Once you get it, you cannot even double-date.   You can take no more than one person under age 18 with you in your car unless they are related.   It only allows you to drive between 5 a.m. and 11 p.m., so you have to get your girl friend home in time so that you have your car in the garage by 11.    So you can go to a movie but you can't stop for a coke afterwards.   Maybe some figure it just isn't worth the bother.
>> 
>> This only gets you a provisional junior license.  If you have a clean record for 12 months, you get a senior license.    With all the kids who are convicted today of drug and alcohol offenses, I wonder how many of those who don't have licenses have been wiped out for that reason?
>> 
>> There are also bureaucratic aggravations.   They need a social security card but if you made the mistake of having it laminated to protect it, that disqualifies you.   You have to go back to social security and get a new one before you can even get a learners permit. 
>> 
>> 2.  There is a large issue, Ray, that I cannot prove and I only suspect might be true.   Maybe others on the list are more tuned in to this.   Maybe its generational and perhaps it goes along with the new immigrants.   Perhaps what I am about to suggest is related to the schooling we are giving our kids.   But I do think are teenagers are more tuned into several environmental issues (as examples, the finite nature of non-renewable resources such as oil, the effects of carbon-dioxide emissions on the planet) and to some degree his may be driving their actions, however small.   Don't fail to realize that this is a topic taught in schools whereas the older generation tends to be in denial.   
>> 
>> 3.  Another factor is that we are becoming less rural and more urban.  Since 1950, most of our northeastern cities declined in population as we rushed to suburbs.   The 2010 census showed a reversal for the first time in a half century in some of those cities.
>> In Pennsylvania, it growth happened between 2000 and 2010 in eight southeastern cities (Philadelphia, Reading, Norristown, Allentown, Bethlehem, East Stroudsburg (borough), Harrisburg and Lancaster) totaling 37,200 at the same time the total state population increased about 420,000.   Normally the whole increase would have beenin the suburbs.   This time close to 10% of it was in places where we don't need cars.  And some of it, like East Stroudsburg, probably relates to college kids who don't need cars.
>> 
>> 4.  I suggested it might be new immigrants.  We had an 82% increase in the Hispanic population from 2000 to 2010 statewide.   The Asians increased by closed to 50% (Indians are Asians).  Theoretically, the census is supposed to count everyone living here.   Doesn't mean that all the kids have social security numbers and can get a drivers license or does it.   In Philadelphia, for example, where we had a 9,000 increase from 2000 to 2010, the Spanish increase was 58,700 and the Asians increased by 27,848 while the blacks were almost constant and whites declined.   Perhaps what is happening is we might be replacing our preexisting population with people who have more of a desire to walk or ride the bus or subway.   
>> 
>> 5.  And maybe we are teaching our kids that they really don't want grease burgers for every meal.   Maybe they are eating healthier and exercising more?   I know the high school I went to had one gym in 1958 for grades 7 through 12.   Today, the school for grades 9 through 12 has six gyms and a lot of fun and games we had have been replaced by exercise machines like your local Planet Fitness workout center.   
>> 
>> 6.  And finally, we know the 0-17 group have declined from 2000 to 2010.   The 18 to 65 has increased.   Some that increase in the second group may well be due to immigration from Asia (Indians and Chinese) and countries to the south of us and we can be dealing with people who might tend to have a higher habit of walking or riding public transit than we do.   
>> 
>> I cannot say from experience guys.  I can only ask questions.   It's been a long time since there was a teenager in this house.   Today we have great grandkids who are under 1, 5 and 6.   And their mom, a nurse, would kill me if I gave them a carbonated drink.     
>> 
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>> 
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