For many, driving is no longer a rite of passage

Given the choice between a smartphone and a set of wheels, more young people are choosing Androids over Audis.

Between 2001 and 2010, Texas added only 2,578 drivers age 16 to 21 while the age group grew by more than 238,000 statewide, dropping the percentage with a license from 62.4 percent to 55.9 percent.

Young adults who drive are doing so less often, researchers said, following a decade-long trend of higher gas prices and fewer young adult drivers.

Young people and transportation experts cite a variety of reasons why obtaining a driver’s license, once a rite of passage for any youngster, is becoming less important.

“Their status symbol, and maybe their focal point of choice, is their phone and the device they carry,” said Russell Henk, program director for the Teens in the Driver’s Seat program, a safety campaign created by the Texas A&M Transportation Institute. “A car, 10 to 20 years ago, was the way to get together. Not anymore.”

The economy, and the need to lower costs by reducing gas consumption, is part of the reason for the drop, which officials say has yielded safety benefits.

“That has been a clear reason why we have seen a decrease in fatal crashes for that age group,” Henk said.

Fatalities for young drivers dropped dramatically between 2007 and 2010, including a 47 percent drop in fatalities for 16and-17-year-olds, according to the Governors Highway Safety Association. Preliminary data for 2012, however, shows road fatalities among young people might be on the rise.

Some suggest environmental consciousness is persuading young adults to ditch their gas-guzzling cars when possible, or to bike or walk to get some exercise. Classes are being taught via webcast, goods can be bought without driving and friends can connect online from their respective homes. Even the workday commute can be erased.

“We live in a world where

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productivity is valued over placement,” said Taylor Kilroy, a University of Houston Law Center student and head of the school’s Energy and Environmental Law Society. “If an employee can produce the same quality work from home, why not allow them to work instead of being stuck in traffic?” Trend since 1970s?

Some studies date the gradual decline in driving among young people to the 1970s.

Henk, who has tracked teen driving behavior for the past seven years, said young women in particular seem to be taking their time before they get a license. He noted his daughter just got her license, although she’s been eligible for 16 months. Part of the reason, Henk speculated, is his daughter doesn’t view driving as a liberating experience.

“Letting us drive her around, it lets her safely focus her energy on texting or whatever she’s got going on,” he said.

The same is true for Nicole Ballenger, 18, a selfdescribed texting junkie from Houston. Ballenger said even though she’s had a license for almost a year, she prefers to let her mother drive so she can concentrate on her phone.

“Driving in Houston is stressful,” she said. “I’m too relaxed.”

Michael Sivak, a researcher at the University of Michigan, said the percentage of young drivers has dropped in many other countries, including Canada, Sweden, Norway and Japan.

The trend has accelerated as tech products have proliferated. When researchers for Zipcar, a car-sharing service, asked those born between 1980 and 2000 what contraption they couldn’t live without, more chose their phone or their computer over their car.

Jose Mendoza, 17, a junior at Carnegie Vanguard High School who lives in southeast Houston, is waiting to acquire his driver’s license until he has the money for a car. Getting the money means getting a job, which he is trying to do while improving his grades. His mom shuttles him from place to place, or he picks up rides from friends. “I pay them for the gas, or I pay my mom for the gas,” he said.

Mendoza said that even when he gets his license, he will limit driving to getting to work or other useful destinations. Gas is too expensive for him to go joyriding far from his home south of Hobby Airport. He’ll still take the school bus. “It’s free,” Mendoza laughed. Easing behind wheel

The extra time to learn to drive does give safety officials time to develop better drivers.

“I think the awareness of vehicle crashes has increased in the last five to 10 years,” Henk said.

In that time, nearly every state in the country has developed some sort of graduated driver’s license program that eases teens into driving. Texas introduced graduated driver’s licensing in 2002.

While experts expect youth driving to remain down from the days when a car was a teenage rite of passage, they don’t expect young people to give up driving, or to remain carfree for long.

“My guess would be it will go away as they become the age where they are really into the workforce and starting families,” Henk said. dug.begley@chron.com twitter.com/DugBegley