Teens not speeding to get their driver’s licenses

• Reprints

Oak Forest High School student Anthony Gowdy, 16, of Milothian, said he took driver's education last semester and plans to get his driver's license within the next year. | Brett Roseman~Sun-Times Media

Updated: March 11, 2012 8:33AM

Considering Casey Gallagher’s schedule, one might think the Oak Forest teen’s desire to get his driver’s license as soon as possible would be in high gear.

Getting up at 4 a.m. to walk to school — even in the snow — can’t be fun. But it’s what Gallagher does when the Oak Forest High School swim team schedules a morning practice before classes.

While driving that mile might let him hit the “snooze” button a couple of times, the 16-year-old isn’t going the extra mile to get his license any time soon.

“My friends are basically kind of the same. Laid-back. ‘I’ll get it when I get it,’ ” Gallagher said.

Plenty of other American teens apparently agree.

According to a recent study by the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute, only 31 percent of 16-year-olds had a driver’s license in 2008. That’s a sharp drop from 46 percent in 1983.

Older teens also are driving less: The percentage of 18-year-olds with licenses fell from 80 in 1983 to 65 in 2008, while the number of 17-year-olds behind the wheel dropped from 69 percent to 50 percent in the same period.

In fact, the percentage of drivers all the way up to age 29 has dropped, according to the study, which is based on data from the Federal Highway Administration.

The reasons vary.

Illinois has a graduated driver’s license program that requires more behind-the-wheel practice. There’s the prohibitive cost of gas and insurance. Gallagher and fellow Oak Forest High School sophomore Guadalupe Jimenez want their own cars. And study co-author Michael Sivak says the Internet may be a big reason for the drop.

“Virtual contact through electronic means reduces the need for actual contact,” Sivak wrote in an email to the Chicago Sun-Times. He jokingly added, “My favorite characterization of the social-media explanation (with some anecdotal evidence for it) is that ‘driving interferes with texting.’ ”

Concerns about preserving the environment, the recent economic downturn and a migration of young people to cities — where public transportation is more readily available — likely all are contributing to the lack of interest in driving, Sivak said.

Neither Jimenez nor Gallagher buys the social-media factor.

“We talk a lot through Facebook, but it’s not really that,” said Jimenez, noting her and her friends get together regardless of whether they’ve been texting all day or not.

She concedes that not having a license means she relies on others for rides, and that since her father and brother work all day and her mother often has to pick up her sister, she sometimes is stuck at home.

Despite that and the fact she’s completed her behind-the-wheel driver education requirement, Jimenez feels no urgency, wanting only to get a license before December, when she turns 17.

“Just being patient,” she said.

Gallagher hasn’t taken behind-the-wheel classes yet, so he says he’s at least a year away from pursuing his license. That’s fine with him because he thinks it’s too difficult to share the family sport utility vehicle. He’s working part-time at a Jewel grocery store to save up for his own ride — not for any particularly vehicle, just “a decent car.”

“Having your own car is a lot,” he said. “Gas prices, insurance ... that comes with it.”

Freedom vs. drawbacks

Still, some Chicago-area teens say getting a license remains a heady thrill.

“Freedom is a big part of it — that’s something teen­agers struggle with: freedom from their parents, freedom from society. Having a car extends your reach,” said Riley Campbell, 15, a sophomore at Evanston Township High School. “You don’t really feel that much freedom sitting in your basement with your laptop on Facebook.”

Sophie Zbesko, a junior at Evanston, said she loves the freedom that comes with driving, but she suspects other teens are either too busy or “not as motivated” to do the work to get a license, which generally includes 30 hours of classroom instruction.

She conceded that having a license has drawbacks.

“There are some times when it’s annoying because I get phone calls and they’re like, ‘Hey, can you drive me?’ And I’m like, ‘You didn’t even ask me to hang out, but you expect me to drive you some place?’ ” she said.

She has an advantage some other teens don’t — her parents pay for her gas. On Wednesday, it was $3.64 in Chicago, according to chicagogasprices.com.

Other costs could be impacting the fall-off in teen drivers, too. Several high school driver’s education teachers said school districts in recent years have increased fees to $400 or more for the behind-the-wheel portion of the class. And car insurance isn’t exactly cheap for teen drivers, leading some parents to delay the process.

But not everyone puts a lot of stock in the University of Michigan study.

Russ Rader, a spokesman for the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety in Arlington, Va., said how statistics are compiled on the youngest license holders varies from state to state. Since the mid-1990s, states — including Illinois — have put restrictions on the age and number of passengers allowed for the youngest drivers. Rader suspects that not all states include those “provisional” license holders among the numbers they send to the Federal Highway Administration.

“That makes it difficult to make comparisons from year to year,” Rader said.

But Rader said there’s one thing that’s certain about the graduated licensing laws that gives teen drivers more leeway as they get older: They have reduced the number of crashes involving 16-year-olds who statistically are the most dangerous drivers on the road.

“The crash rate per mile driven for 16-year-olds is twice as high as it is for 18- and 19-year-olds,” Rader said. “It’s a combination of immaturity and driving inexperience. The teen crash problem has been improving since states began enacting graduated license laws. States that have adopted (them) have experienced crash reductions of 10 to 30 percent for teens.”

Contributing: Erika Wurst, Donna Vickroy and Mike Deacon