In an op ed entitled "Driving Miss Chloe," New York Times scribe Caitlin Flanagan argues that the drop in teenage drivers reflects over-protective parents. Seemingly oblivious to journalistic scandals involving fictional composites, Flanagan invents a teenage girl named Chloe and castigates her for riding with Mom in a Toyota Sienna– instead of learning how to drive. "When I was in high school in the 1970s, we had a name for teenagers like Chloe: losers… In my day, we did whatever was necessary to get out on a Saturday night: we climbed out of windows; we jumped on the back of motorcycles; God help us, we hitchhiked. We needed, on the most basic and physical level, to be out in the dangerous night, with one another, away from our parents and the safety of home. It was no way to live, and some of us didn’t. But it was a drive so elemental and essential that there seemed no way to deny it." In a nod to reality, Flanagan mentions the enormous cost of insuring a teen driver– and then dismisses it in her relentless assault on today's teens' lack of gumption. "Learn to drive? Why would they want to do that?" she concludes. Offer coherent analysis of teen driving trends? Why would Flanagan do that?
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I could care less if they drive or not. Just means less distracted texting-while-driving rolling accidents waiting to happen.
If we get enough teens without licenses, then maybe the environmentalists will get their wish and we’ll see less cars and less traffic on the road.
Of course, it would be a problem if that happens for local municipalities since that means less people they can collect revenue issue tickets to.
Anyone that cares at all about cars would realize newspapers are not the place to get car info, and probably nobody who visits TTAC regularly gives a flying rat’s ass about what the popular press thinks about anything automotive.
So some self righteous dimwit writes a laughable piece on teenage (non)driving…great, they are dime a dozen, why do we care?
Von: Anyone that cares at all about cars would realize newspapers are not the place to get car info, and probably nobody who visits TTAC regularly gives a flying rat’s ass about what the popular press thinks about anything automotive. Statistically, search engines account for 57.18 percent of TTAC’s traffic. So I’m thinking that a lot of our visitors are newbies and occasional visitors. I bet they’re interested in more than OUR opinion of car-related news. And TTAC’s Best and Brightest have proven time and time again that they’re engaged in– and fascinated by– the wider world of politics, fashion, economics, media, etc. Oh, and “anti-branding” is one of the best ways for a non-leading brand to promote and reinforce itself. (Thank you Al Reis.) So we’ll continue the media blogging.
She should be an executive at GM. With that much arrogance, she’d fit right in.
I’d say she’s accurately pegged a fairly substantial portion of teenagers, with a good explanation of the parental influences that got them there. Of course, it pays to remember a news column requires a certain number of words and a well defined opinion.
quasimondo: I could care less if they drive or not.
We should care, IMHO, because as dangerous as teen drivers are on average, inexperienced adult drivers aren’t much better. And today’s non-driving teen is tomorrow’s inexperienced driving adult. I’d rather people learn to drive with SOME kind of adult supervision (even if only part-time) as teenagers than with no supervision at all in their 20’s. But that’s just an opinion, of course.
A lot of schools no longer offer drivers ed. So a lot of teens end up having to postpone learning how to drive.
I like what the do in Australia with the “L” and “P” plates on cars. I wish some US states would start that too.
Brownie, I’m of the school of thought that believes the longer they stay off the road, the better.
They can get around on bikes and rollerblades for all I care.
Boy, there’s a lot of hate out there, eh?
Hate for environmentalists, liberals, the New York Times (same thing, actually), attractive and intelligent female reporters (ditto), people who can’t drive as well as “we” can, the popular press (as though ttac is somehow at the summit of intellectualism), people who’ve achieved something that “we” haven’t, anybody who knows less about cars than “we” do even though they’ve actually got lives…let it all out, people, bust a gut, have a coronary.
Like troonbop, above, I think she’s accurately pegged a lot of teenagers. It mystifies me that so many are not that interested in driving, but on the other hand, the ones that drive and text are truly scary. They need severe penalties for that. It’s much more dangerous than driving on the cell phone–which I don’t like either. So if they don’t get on the roads until they are more mature, maybe so much the better, even though I think driving is one of those skills that’s best learned early rather than later.
I like the idea of L plates, and think there should also be O plates, for old. I’d happily use when when my reflexes start slowing down.
im 18 and i have one friend who doesnt have her licence. listening to thi s i really wouldnt want to live in the us. no one has a licence you dont have commodores yet, everyone whinges about fuel prices. L plates are great it means you know exatly who you can cut off without worrying about them getting out of the car at the next lights with a wheel spanner.
Well thats good most teenagers just put it in “R” and begin texting only to back into another Cobalt…I mean seriously this whole spoiling your kids rotten shouldnt be like that, because once they get out to the real world its tough luck and life’s a bitch, get used to it. Now you see all these emotional adults that throw fits and have “Dr. Phil” moments when things don’t go right their way. I mean i know in New York, Mass transit is an option but in the majority of the good ol’ USA there is no subway or city bus. They will have to learn to drive sometime and during the mind-20s is just as risky and a 16 year old.
Yeah, the cost really shouldn’t be underestimated. Cars were freedom once upon a time, but nowadays the opposite could well be said to be true. The cost of the car, the insurance, parking/speeding tickets, gas, etc forces you to either get a job or deal full-time with parental vicissitudes. Neither of which really constitute freedom.
Wow…just wow…
My family is poor and can’t afford a car for me and just now was able to afford insurance on my Mom’s minivan (I’m 20…just started “legally” driving a few months ago) so I’m a slacker?
People like her just need to shut up and go away. Spare us the stupidity.
Our extended family lost one teen and had another become a paraplegic in the late ’70s. In both cases, the root cause was teen stupidity and a sense of invincibility. They both had been raised by attentive parents and new better. I now have three daughters, the oldest of which received her license as soon as she could. Within a month, she backed out the driveway into a vehicle parked on the road and caused $5000 damage. She was on her way to the bank to pay her first speeding ticket. My youngest daughter recently turned 17 and she is in no rush to get her license. I am not inclined to push her. She will eventually learn to drive, but only when she is ready to do so. By that time, she will hopefully have moderated her sense of invincibility and will make a better and more mature driver.
Not all kids are the same, but letting many of them wait two or three years to get a license will prevent a lot of damage and heartache.
She (Caitlin) could march in my St. Paddy’s day parade anytime!
Though I think she was grasping for content a bit, but we all have days like that.
quasimondo: “I could care less if they drive or not.”
You must mean: “couldn’t care less”?
Sort of reverses your argument…
RF:
I use google everytime I come to TTAC because I don’t bookmark TTAC (or anything not work related) on my work computer. While I certainly don’t believe everyone is as paranoid as I am, it could account for some percentage of the traffic from search engines. Especially since most of the comments are posted during working hours, so I gather that a good portion of the folks that visit TTAC do so from work.
But the reason for my comment was that I thought TTAC was a site for piston heads. By giving craptastic articles like the one in NYT, I think TTAC is giving credit where none is deserved, and thus, straying from the focus of this site.
I didn’t get a license until I was 21, but I was no slacker. I, too, came from a poor family and couldn’t afford a car. My mom could barely afford the dirt cheap cars she had while I was growing up. I worked my way through college and actually had to sell the car that I had to raise the money to help pay one quarter’s tuition during my Junior year. Having said that, I do agree that children are overprotected and overindulged. You gotta’ growup sometime, the younger the better.
I have read Ms. Flanagan’s articles in The Atlantic, which makes me an East Coast liberal [except that I’m a libertarian based in Los Angeles].
One of her themes is the establishment of the Nanny State with the concurrent loss of ambition and drive in the young. Why learn to do anything for yourself when Mom ‘n’ Dad, the Police, and the Gov’t will “protect you”? Not so different from all you self-righteous folks, eh?
Stephan Wilkinson is dead-on, as usual.
I want them driving so their parents can pay ridiculous insurance premiums. This fills the bucket for the rest of us and keeps our rates down,.