This is in part because cars are still a big deal. Even with lowered proportions of young drivers, millions of adolescents remain on the freeways, and traffic crashes still are the leading cause of death for 15- to 20-year-olds.
But it also may be because, as trends go, the decline in licensing has been slow speed and has reached critical mass only in the last decade. Raymond Peck, a Folsom-based traffic safety consultant who was chief of the California DMV's research and development branch until 2000, said the declining numbers had generally been regarded as an intriguing footnote to more pressing research on the effects of various traffic safety measures. "I'm not sure anyone in California has been aware of it except for a few people at the DMV."
In any case, it is making itself felt in places like suburban Orange County, where Manako Ihaya, a mother of four, recently bought a sporty red Honda in an attempt to entice her 18- and 20-year-old daughters to get licensed. So far, she said, they've ignored the bribe.
"As soon as I turned 16, I got my license," remembered Ihaya, who was born in Japan and grew up in the San Gabriel Valley. "If you didn't, it would have been like, 'What's wrong with you?' "
In Riverside, 16-year-old Kevin Wintersteen says he'd like a license, but he keeps hitting roadblocks.
"First, we didn't have the money for driving classes. Then we got the money, but on the day they had the classes, I had football practice and I didn't want to miss," he said. "Then I found this online class. And we sent $85 and they sent all this stuff. But then our Internet got messed up and it took three or four weeks for it to come back. Then the test you had to take to pass the class was pretty long, and each chapter was like 20 or 30 questions, and I was just doing a chapter, like, every now and then. And then when I finished it? We couldn't find an envelope ... "
Doing without, however, hasn't been as painful as he'd expected, the boy said. His mom drops him off every morning at his school's entrance, and his girlfriend, who is 18, provides the transportation when he goes out.
In urban Los Angeles, Garfield High School football coach Lorenzo Hernandez recently bought an SUV to shuttle players because so many lacked transportation. "It's amazing," Hernandez said. "It used to be if kids needed rides, there were seniors or whoever who could take them. But we have 56 kids on the team this year, and I only have, like, two who can drive."
