Why Don't They Drive? A Reflection on the Vanishing Rite of Motion

For generations, getting your driver's license was a sacred rite of passage. It wasn't just a card-it was freedom. It meant midnight drives with the windows down, the bass thumping, the scent of hot asphalt in the summer air. It meant escape from the house, escape from rules, escape from who you were expected to be. It was sex, rebellion, privacy, power, and adulthood all rolled into a turn of the ignition.

But Gen Z doesn't seem to want it.

There are 19-year-olds who have no interest in driving. No urgency to get their license. No plans to buy a car. To those of us born in the 1980s or earlier, this is nearly incomprehensible. What happened?

1. The Death of Escape

For older generations, driving was how you got out. Out of town. Out of your parents' shadow. Out to a place where something unsupervised might happen. But Gen Z escapes through their screens. They can vanish into a world of TikTok, Discord, and gaming-without ever leaving their room. There's no longer a spatial urgency to connect or explore. Their world is flattened, digital, ambient. Why drive when your life already comes to you?

2. Driving Is Now Stressful, Not Cool

For today's teens, cars are no longer symbols of freedom. They're expense, surveillance, anxiety. Gas prices are high. Insurance is complicated. GPS apps let parents track their every move. Cameras are everywhere. Cops are unpredictable. Getting behind the wheel doesn't feel like rebellion-it feels like liability.

3. The Spatial Collapse of Culture

The mall is online. Friendships are sustained through voice chats and memes. Even dating starts and often ends digitally. Gen Z has been conditioned to believe that the body is optional. That motion is inefficient. That the real world is only where you go when the digital world isn't enough.

4. Parental Overreach + Prolonged Adolescence

Many Gen Z teens live in homes where they are infantilized longer. They don't need to work. Their schedules are tightly managed. Their transportation is often handled for them. The emotional machinery of "launching" has been delayed. Driving, which requires initiative and independence, doesn't even make it onto the radar.

5. The Mood Itself Has Shifted

There's a current of low energy, anxiety, and disembodiment that runs through this generation. Many teens are genuinely afraid of making mistakes. Of crashing. Of doing something wrong. They weren't trained to take risks-they were trained to avoid harm. Driving feels like a burden, not a milestone.

We don't just miss the cars. We miss what the cars meant.

Driving meant trying things. Getting lost. Getting kissed. Getting scared. Getting away. It was the sacred, secular ritual of self-motion.

When they don't want to drive, it's not just about transportation. It's a signal. A shift in the human condition. A quieting of the flame that once said: "Go. Find out. Become."

And that's what really haunts us.