Top auto insurers already know what an NHTSA survey recently revealed: young people are waiting to get their first driver’s license, sometimes several years after they are eligible to do so.

For us older Americans that sort of thinking is odd, even weird. How many of us couldn’t wait to drive, raising money to buy our first set of wheels and hitting the road? Driving meant freedom, the chance to go where you wanted to go and whenever you wanted.

Shifting Trends

But like so many auto trends, changes do occur. In some states the driving age has been upped in a bid to keep young, inexperienced drivers off of the road. That may not be such a bad thing given that the death rate for new drivers is the highest of any age group. Still, with some people not driving when they can, that may limit their ability to get around town, but in this digital age those priorities are no longer what they once were.

And it is the digital age that is changing the way we interact and work, something that the Internet began to change in the mid-1990s. Though people aren’t quite at the level of working remotely as some had predicted just five years ago, the trend is shifting slowly. That means people don’t need a car if their home is their office of if their commute is a short trolley or subway trip crosstown.

Teens Want

So I set out to ask some of the neighborhood kids in my community near Raleigh, NC to find out what they planned to do when they hit driving age. You can drive when you’re 16 in NC, even at 15 with an adult present. Still, I heard a mixed bag of responses from the group of skateboarders who frequent a nearby park.

Jake said that he was going to get his driver’s license as soon as he turned 16 and would get his driver’s permit later this year when he turned 15. Yet, he said that he wouldn’t buy his own car given how expensive insurance was. He’d drive only if he mother’s car was available and even then he would have to pay for his own insurance and gas.

Robert was already 16 and in no hurry to drive. Like so many teens, he has an iPhone and is thinking iPad, not buying a car. Yes, this is the Apple generation as he loves his iTunes, downloading what he wants to his iPod. When it comes to considering driving, his “tunes” take precedence over buying gas. It seems that music is the freedom today’s generation prizes the most.

Julie wants to drive but her parents say that will happen when she is 17 and is working to pay for gas and her share of insurance. Right now, band practice and sports takes up all of her time. Work will come later, but driving just doesn’t offer that much excitement. Besides, when she needs to go somewhere a friend or her brother can take her.

New Priorities

Yes, it is the rise of the Internet which seems to have changed the priorities of today’s youth. This generation of teens doesn’t know a world without the Internet, perhaps representing the most informed group of young people that ever was.