It’s a popular refrain to suggest that young people are falling out of love with cars.
As evidence, it’s noted that throughout much of the developed world, the proportion of young people learning to drive is down over the past two decades. Well, the stats can say that, but I’m not buying what’s inferred from them.
Granted, if much of your life is spent on a Lime bike, driving would interrupt your phone use, and if your home city introduces a congestion charge despite 74% of its residents thinking it would have a negative impact (slow hand clap, once again, for Oxfordshire County Council), I can see why you wouldn’t bother with driving.
But that isn’t the same thing as falling out of love with cars; it’s car use and car ownership becoming too expensive and difficult. What happens if you remove the barriers to driving and car ownership? It seems to me that the appeal of driving and cars is as strong as ever.
A case study in point: the professional footballer. (You should note this isn’t a column about football; I like the game but I realise you might not.) Now and again a social media algorithm will decide that what I’d like to watch next is top-tier footballers arriving at their training grounds.
Now, if there is a group of people who don’t need to have an interest in cars and driving, this is it. They are the people who least need an interest in motoring. For one, they already have a hobby. You know how you and I devoured everything about motoring in our youth? How we spent our younger lives thinking about little else? These people did that with football.
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I don't think using footballers as basis for this argument is especially strong. Of course expense is a major barrier to driving and car ownership but I suspect the reasons why fewer young people are learning to drive are more complex than just money. Some younger people may be more conscious of the environmental impacts of driving, others may have different priorities for their money or live in cities where driving isn't necessary. Some simply can't find driving instructors with capacity to teach them. A bit more research into this issue would've gone a long way.
Writing this entire article without mentioning that most young people can't afford basic amenities, let alone a car, show how intensely out of touch this publication is. Plenty of young people have a passion for cars but like everything else that is now out of reach because of the gerontocracy they cannot experience it. Maybe if publications like this were willing to mention that things would change and we could keep the community alive.