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Have young people lost their drive to get behind the wheel?

Daniel and Gina say they only bought a car because it makes it easier to travel with their pet pooch Mabel - Justin Grant
Daniel and Gina say they only bought a car because it makes it easier to travel with their pet pooch Mabel - Justin Grant

Aspiration has long been inextricably linked with car ownership but, once you have passed your driving test, has the romanticised prospect of an endless horizon and the ability to venture at will almost anywhere on dry land lost its allure for many young adults?

“To be quite frank, I’ve never had any interest in driving,” said 20-year-old Isabelle Grant. “Driving is a waste of time because you can’t do anything else.”

Based in Ruislip, north-west London, she manages a Sue Ryder charity shop in Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire, and has a commute that involves a bus and train ride. The idea of making the trip by car doesn’t appeal.

“I wouldn’t be able to afford an electric car, which is what I’d want for the environment,” she said. “Another reason is that I wouldn’t have enough concentration for driving. On public transport I can read or chill.”

Isabelle’s brother, Daniel, 24, is a motion graphics designer working on films such as the recent Black Adam blockbuster. He’s a car fan, with fond childhood memories of being taken by an uncle to see the regular passeggiata of supercars that wealthy young men liked to parade noisily in Chelsea, yet he hasn’t taken a driving test either. Why?

“The cost of driving lessons, as well as upkeep and insurance, are the main reasons I haven’t learnt to drive,” said Daniel, who shares a flat in the outer London suburb of Ickenham with his partner, an NHS auditor. “The industry I work in is based entirely in London. I wouldn’t want to drive into the centre of town and public transport is easy to use.”

Isabelle Grant sees driving as a waste of time - Justin Grant
Isabelle Grant sees driving as a waste of time - Justin Grant

Some of Isabelle’s friends who either own cars or are learning to drive are finding that the significant cost involved has a direct impact. “A few of my friends say they can’t come out because they’ve got to save to put petrol in their cars. Their social lives are slightly more limited because of this,” she said.

Shifting trends

The PA news agency ferreted out some Driver and Vehicle Licensing  Authority (DVLA) figures for driving licence holders aged up to 25. In March last year there were 2.97 million of them, down from 3.32 million for the same month in 2020.

Neil Greig, policy and research director for advanced driver training body IAM RoadSmart, thinks that for many people this trend is about deferring car ownership rather than abandoning it altogether.

“I think there are certainly trends towards gaining a licence later in life. More young folk are in further education for longer, plus low pay and student debt are big factors in delaying driving – but eventually the metropolitan young (who also had Uber and public transport options in their late teens and early 20s) move out to the suburbs and find a car a necessity for jobs and family life,” he said.

Greig insisted that in outer suburbs and rural areas, demand for car use remains high. “Add in recent stories about car use still going up and weekends being as busy as weekdays and it’s clear the death of the private car is still some way off,” he said.

Daniel Grant and his partner Gina Mallard might fall into this category as they have, perhaps reluctantly, bought a Ford Fiesta, in part because their household now includes a dog, and Gina decided that a car would make it easier to visit her parents in Cheltenham.

Lockdown's impact

Since her last parental visit, the Fiesta has lain untouched for a couple of weeks. The car is fitted with a “black box” which records how it’s being driven, something tied in with RAC-sourced insurance, which costs Gina £106 a month (“I think that’s quite good and I’m over 25 so the premiums are cheaper”). A further £600 was spent on her driving lessons.

Daniel would like to get a driving licence “before I’m 30”. If this happens he and Gina will be part of the trend towards learning to drive from mid-20s up, rather than from 17 when you can legally hold a provisional licence and drive a car on public roads.

Seb Goldin, CEO of RED Driver Training, said the majority of its students now fall into this slightly older age bracket, adding that 70 per cent of them are self-funding.

Lockdown temporarily suppressed demand for driving lessons. According to the Department for Transport, 5,909 20-year-olds sat the practical test in 2020, compared with 18,407 the year before. Between April 2021 and last March that figure had jumped to 22,759, and as Greig points out, this pent-up demand has created a backlog of test applications.

“We’re getting four times the number of inquiries we had pre-pandemic,” said Goldin. “Despite the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency’s best efforts, capacity for tests is still less than it was pre-pandemic. Urban areas such as Manchester and Leeds are experiencing a perfect storm [of increased demand and lack of test slots]. In London you’ll wait four to six months to get a test.”

In March last year there were 2.97 million driving licence holders up to age 25, down from 3.32 million in 2020 - Alamy
In March last year there were 2.97 million driving licence holders up to age 25, down from 3.32 million in 2020 - Alamy

The DVSA claims 836,952 driving tests took place between May and October this year, up 49,647 on the same period in 2021, but Goldin reckons it would take 15 years to clear the current backlog.

However, not everyone in the queue is under 30. A company with the self-explanatory name of Retirement Villages dug up some DVSA data that showed a 259 per cent year-on-year increase in 50-somethings learning to drive. This can in part be explained by lockdown, but there has been a definite spike in demand since. Between April 2020 and March last year, 1,377 50- to 59-year-olds took the test. For the same period between 2021 and 2022, the figure had jumped to 5,150.

Annette Millinson was 62 when she took her driving test. This was after 25 lessons with RED, punctuated by a five-month break caused by the departure of her original instructor and the unavailability of a replacement who taught in an automatic car.

Annette had first taken lessons when she was in her 20s, but other things kept getting in the way. She passed at the first attempt, doing so after she’d tired of lifts from friends, taxi rides and rain-lashed bus stops.

“From my experience, it’s hard to retain all the information. When I got home after a lesson I’d sit down and make notes and kept going through them during the week, especially on the morning when I had the next lesson,” she said.

To many drivers, her Skoda Fabia might not seem much, but it is a talisman of freedom, something that would be true whatever her age. The lure of the open road is as strong as ever, it seems, although these days the reality may be somewhat more prosaic.


Is learning to drive an important rite of passage? Share your experience in the comments section below