Is the "car culture" dying?

[Jeff]

The following is an excerpt from a Time.com click bait piece I was reading while watching the Service desk over lunch. The article was "10 Things Millennials Won't Spend Money On."

Back when the Beach Boys wrote Little Deuce Coupe in 1963, there was a whole genre called “Car Songs.” Nowadays you’d be hard pressed to find someone under 35 who knows what a “competition clutch with the four on the floor” even means.

The sad fact is that American car culture is dying a slow death. Yahoo Finance reports the percentage of 16-to-24-year-olds with a driver’s license has plummeted since 1997 and is now below 70% for the first time since Little Deuce Coupe’s release. According to the Atlantic, “In 2010, adults between the ages of 21 and 34 bought just 27 percent of all new vehicles sold in America, down from the peak of 38 percent in 1985.”

[ViPER1313]

Correlation is not causation, but I do feel like most people 5 years younger than I am look at a car as either a liability or a necessary evil opposed to a toy or status symbol. The more alarming statistic is that many people don't even test drive the car they end up buying, treating it just like another household appliance that you can shop for online.

[D_Eclipse9916]

No,

Car culture is very much alive, depending on what you view "car" culture as. IF you mean everyone wants a "transportation" device named a car, yes; that is down. If you mean the amount of kids who now have access to information, parts, and help to "modify" their cars, I think that is very alive. (and if you used SEMA statistics you would think it is up!)

Using a statistic of kids buying new cars seems funny considering Healthcare now has increased age of dependents (typically kids who cant afford healthcare arent buying new cars themselves). My graduating class of 2009 was very poor for getting jobs out of college, and heck, you are comparing 2010 in a bad economy to a "Peak of new cars bought" in 1985. Throw out that statistic, its garbage.

I think what is happening is the "weeding out" of people who just want to commute. Driver's licenses are down because kids who have no interest in exhausts and squealing rubber is looking at these statistics:

A) Honda Accord $400/month, Insurance $1-200/month, Gas $200-400/month, Personal Property taxes, Vehicle Registration fees, bad dealer experiences, increased maintenance costs, risk of crash (and paying for it), risk of breakdown, traffic etc.

B) Metro/Bus/Walking - free to $200/month, can watch ipod/facebook/instragram, viewed as more earth-friendly, no risk except being late.

C)Mommy/Daddy - Free

Really makes it wonder why the hell they would WANT a car aside from freedom/fun. Well if you are getting all your freedom/experiences from the internet or just travelling overseas, and don't really care about burning rubber......decision is clear to me. I HATE driving on the street, and take public transportation or carpool to work everyday...and you can't say I dont love cars, now think of those who don't.


In 2010, most kids graduating college (21 to 34) and

[RawrImAMonster]

I would say no based on the fact that I've seen a lot more modified cars around Harrisonburg in the last year or so. Not necessarily nice ones, but at least people still are interested in cars enough to modify theirs.

That could just be for this area though.

[Goodspeed]

This topic has been appearing everywhere I look lately that has anything to do with cars - blogs, forums, shows. Agreed with the correlation ≠ causation and young people are dead broke ideas. The way I see it is this:

- young people don't need cars/licenses anymore to hang out with friends. There goes the license incentive for many teenagers - if 1 in your group of 4 has a license and mom's Taurus for the weekend, why bother?
- More young people are living in or moving back to urban centers - a car or even license may not be necessary.
- Said young people don't have money anymore. And what money they do have, they're probably more interested in saving.

As for the new vehicle thing, I think that has 100% to do with the "no money" thing. For some people a car payment is an expense just like rent, so 3-400/mo is palatable. For others it's just not a good value proposition, a '99 Accord will get you from point A to point B just as good as a '14 Accord. As comfortably, or "connected"? Maybe not, but for some they'd rather pocket the cost of a car payment and save it/use it for other needs.

[WRXtranceformed]

Public transportation generally has gotten way better than it used to, with a lot of cities (like Charlotte) offering bike shares, ride shares, Ubers, heck you can even get your groceries delivered in the city so there really is no reason to have a car for a lot of people who live there. Most people I know who live in Chicago don't own a vehicle, unless they live on the outskirts and have to commute. I had to have a vehicle growing up because our farm was out there away from everywhere I needed to be for sports, etc.
I think it really depends on where you live. I see tons of young kids driving sports cars / modded cars down here. They may not be buying NEW ones right out of college, but I don't know many people that ever did really...

[Jake]

I think the other thing with new car sales stats is that 20-30 years ago, used cars either weren't nearly as nice and/or didn't last as long. If you were buying your first car in 1985, your choices would be a used 1970s-esque something which was huge, smogged down and got no power from many liters, and did horrific on gas - or Dodge would sell you a cheap-ass K-car that was the exact opposite of that. Both options were good, but if you had a job and could swing the payment, the new car was significantly more appealing.

Nowadays, your average 20-something commuter has a wider range of solid choices, IMO. $8-10k cash will buy you a very solid 10-year-old Accord EX, and it'll have leather, pimpy audio, alloys, power everything, keyless entry, metallic paint, etc etc and likely go for 200k miles with little hassle. You can also go buy a $30k brand-new Accord EX, and it will have the same stuff, but with a USB port instead of an Aux jack for your iPhone. I think there's more of an appeal to used vehicles now, given they are better-equipped and may last longer than options from so long ago.

^ I'm tired, so I hope that made a lick of sense.

[Jeff]

Lots of great points. The original statement about the lack of specific car references in music is shit also. How many lines about rims and expensive cars do you hear in hip-hop music? Just the changing times.

[Senor_Taylor]

Lamborghini Mercy, yo chick she so... uninterested in car culture.

[BLINGMW]

Saving some time on comments here, since this was discussed before:
<!-- l --><a class="postlink-local" href="http://www.mmsports.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=10744&hilit=license">viewtopic.php?f=4&t=10744&hilit=license</a><!-- l -->

I had a another thought, on the "correlation is not causation" comment.

When I was 15, and really this was true for everyone else I knew, there was no discussion of "should I get a car", or "do I want to deal with the hassle of a car". CAR = FREEDOM. I would have a car, end of discussion, no rationality necessary.
What do I need to do to get a car? Get a job.
I want a better car. Go to college.
I'd like to drive my car fast and am tired of getting arrested and hurt. Create motorsports club.
I'd like a family and a house. Get a better job. Buy all the cars.

So... members of this generation are having trouble finding jobs, not motivated to get out of their parents' basement, AND don't have a car? Hmmmm.... well, which one came first? hock: hock: hock:

I'm half kidding of course. But if more of this generation doesn't have any real wants and needs because the internet and smart phones are providing enough freedom and community for them, well, I'd like to state now that we're royally f'd. Well ok, maybe not. But the expansionist, freedom-loving, bomb-the-other-people attitude may not have much of a place around here anymore.

[Jeff]

Lamborghini Mercy, yo chick she so... uninterested in car culture.

Lol. I suppose that is true. But I was getting at cars in pop culture and media being still a thing but I guess the context is important!

[*insertusernamehere*]

Lots of great points. The original statement about the lack of specific car references in music is shit also. How many lines about rims and expensive cars do you hear in hip-hop music? Just the changing times.

There's an entire song about waking up in a Bugatti. #jussayin


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[*insertusernamehere*]

Also, how do you guys keep getting your statistics on young kids in HS? Cause as far as i've seen the parking lot at my old HS can barely hold all the student cars and i see way too many camaros, mustangs and civic si's to assume people aren't interested. Its pretty much a fight to ensure you ended up in the drivers ed class so you can get your license ASAP before anyone else.




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk