Drive Not, He Said

                 A remembered rite of passage was nearing ------- her son's getting his driver's license.
                 Except that he didn't really seem to care.   Why?
                
                 I took my driver's license test on my 16th birthday.  In 1984, you could get your learner's permit at 15 years and nine months, so that the day you hit Sweet 16, you could also hit the sweet streets alone.
                My plan ---- which mirrored that of all my friends ---- was to get behind the wheel as soon as possible.  The day I got my license, my mom gave me the keys to her car and off I went to visit my boyfriend.  I remember the moment vividly ---- backing that car down the driveway for the first time all by myself.  Life was good;  I was free.
                Last month, my oldest son, Noah turned 16 years old.  And things in the commonwealth are much different now.
                First, Pennsylvania now has a graduated driver licensing (GDL) system, which means you can't get your learner's permit until you are 16.  Then, you must complete "65 hours of supervised behind-the-wheel skill-building, including no less than 10 hours of nighttime driving and five hours of bad weather driving," before you take the test.  Given the above, it will be at least six more months before my son can drive alone anywhere.
               The rules aside, there is one huge difference that has left me completely perplexed, wondering where I failed as a parent:
               Noah isn't really interested in driving.
               His ambivalence first appeared a few months ago when I eagerly handed him the state drivers manual that I picked up for him at the Department of Motor Vehicles.  He politely skimmed through it and then permanently abandoned it on the kitchen counter.  When I asked him a few weeks later if he wanted to get his permit on his birthday, he vaguely said: "Sure, I guess......at some point."  But he never followed up.
              He's not the only one.  In the last year, I have had conversations with number of parents of teens who are eligible to drive but choose to wait.  A call to my insurance agent confirmed my suspicions.  An Allstate spokeswoman pointed me to a number of statistics, including a recent study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which found that the percentage of high school seniors with their driver's licenses fell from 85 percent in 1996 to 73 percent in 2012.
             The generational gap feels inexplicably wide here.  We could barely wait o win this rite of passage.  What happened to this next generation's drive?
             I pondered a few explanations:  Driving is too intimidating.  Granted, the process of driving is no more daunting than when I was 16.  But back then, our understandings of the perils of the road were limited to how much we paid attention during the manadatory Driver's Ed screening of Highways of Death.  Ignorance was indeed strength in 1984.  Today, there is a steady drumbeat of public messages and warnings regarding how an innocent ride can go horribly wrong.  According to Allstate Insurance, more than half of all teens will be involved in a car accident before they graduate from high school.  It takes a village to scare a child ----- and we are doing an excellent job.
            GDL is too much trouble.  I wonder if the added hours of GDL have sucked all the joy out of getting one's license.  No doubt the extra training is wise and prudent, but admittedly it does dampen the excitement.  Those who pursue their driver's license these days really have to want it ----- as do their parents, who signed that contract for five hours of bad weather driving.  It's almost easier tojust cart my kid around for the next few years.
             Driving no longer equals freedom.  Herein lies perhaps the most poignant reason for this generation's waning enthusiasm for driving.  Teens don't need a set of car keys to be free.  They already are.   When I was a teenager, if I wanted to engage with my friends, I would have to physically transport myself to a specific place.  Otherwise, I was relegated to the corded telephone, where I could have limited conversations with one person at a time.  Today my kid doesn't need car keys; he needs a Facebook or Google + account to connect with his friends.  They can remotely play one another in video games and are in constant electronic contact, regardless of where they might be.  So driving to spend time with pals is more of a nicety than a necessity.
            At some point during this exercise, I concluded my concern was misdirected.  In my haste to diagnose some deep-seated, emotional reason that my son didn't want to rush over to the DMV, I didn't embrace the gift I was given.
            Truth be told, we hit the jackpot with a son who isn't champing at the bit to take off in our car.  Despite being at this parenting thing for 16 years, I still haven't fully learned that you can't "ungrow" them once they cross a threshold ---- and with every new passage into adulthood comes a fresh set of worries.  Driving is the mother lode of them all.  If Noah isn't in a hurry, then neither am I.
            My son, I wisely yield to you the right of way.