News / UWE Bristol
UWE study reveals why young people are driving less
While many regard turning 17 as an important date in any teenager’s coming of age – the date you finally have the ability to drive your very own car – younger generations are becoming less and less eager to get behind the wheel and start driving. A study in 2014 found that just 29 per cent of young people aged 17-20 held a full driving license, compared to 48 per cent in 1992.
Academics at the UWE Bristol and the University of Oxford recently combined for joint study on behalf of the Department for Transport. Their research focused on the main factors behind such a dramatic shift in public opinion.
The study found that current social-economic conditions and living circumstances have been crucial in the dramatic drop in car ownership in recent years. The immense rise in lower paid and less secure jobs, decreased home ownership and increased higher level education have been big influencing factors behind the sharp decline. Growing urbanisation and public transport links have also played a role.
is needed now More than ever
Also, the study highlighted a preference for young people to communicate online as opposed to face-to-face as a possible cause of lower driving rates among younger generations.
The study was led by Dr Kiron Chatterjee, associate professor of travel behaviour at UWE Bristol. He described the decreasing number of millennials with driving licenses as the “new norm”, and said it would be “difficult to envisage” such a boom in car ownership like that which occurred during the 1960s and 1980s.
“It is important that policies in transport and other sectors reflect the fall in the proportion of young people with a driving licence or access to a car,” Dr Chatterjee continued. “While the change in young people’s travel behaviour is to be welcomed in that it aligns with aims to reduce the adverse impacts of transport use, such as air pollution and carbon emissions, it is important that young people have alternatives to the car for getting to education, employment and social destinations. Otherwise there could be damaging impacts on their life opportunities and wellbeing.”
Read more: ‘Underground system could solve Bristol’s transport problems’
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