Teens wait to sit in driver's seat

Hilary Pflug turned 18 on Monday and just got her driver's license.

No rite-of-passage trip to the DMV on her 16th birthday. No “Please, Mom, can I have the keys?” And when she finally did get the license, she didn't even drive home from the Nebraska Department of Motor Vehicles station near 108th Street and West Maple Road.

“We didn't even think about it,” said Pflug, whose father, John, drove her there and back about a week before her 18th birthday.

Pflug isn't the only teenager who is ho-hum about the little plastic card that used to signify freedom. In an apparent trend playing out in Nebraska, Iowa and elsewhere, teenagers are delaying getting their driver's licenses or permits, or not getting them at all.

Iowa officials say the number of 16-year-olds with some type of license has been dropping, following Iowa population projections.

A World-Herald review of Nebraska state data shows a downward trend in the number of teenagers — younger ones in particular — getting their driver's licenses or permits.

Between 2001 and 2009 — the most recent year for driver's license data — the number of Nebraska teens ages 15 through 19 with a license or permit dropped by about 13 percent. For 16- and 17-year-olds, the drops were steeper: 16.2 percent and 22 percent, respectively. And this occurred as the state signed up 97,000 more licensed drivers of any age than it had in 2001. (Comparable figures were not available for Iowa.)

Part of the reason has to do with demographics. According to census data, there were fewer Nebraskans ages 15 to 19 in general (about 5 percent fewer in 2009 than in 2001). Still, the decrease was not enough to account for the precipitous drop in licensed teen drivers.

State and local officials, as well as some parents and teens, offered other explanations:

Ÿ More rules. It's no longer that simple for a 16-year-old to get a driver's license.

All states now have a graduated driver's license for teenagers that restricts driving privileges for the youngest, least-experienced drivers. Those restrictions limit night driving, the number of passengers and the use of mobile devices. So a Nebraska 16-year-old could, at most, get a provisional operator's permit after completing a state-approved driver safety class or showing proof that she practiced driving with an adult for at least 50 hours. Those teens also have to pass written and driving exams.

“We're trying to slow down the pace that a student jumps into that car and takes off driving on his or her own,” said Don Cunningham, director of traffic safety at the Nebraska Safety Council in Lincoln. “We want more training, more driver's experience.”

Ÿ Bigger expense. According to estimates from the Nebraska Department of Insurance, the average six-month auto insurance premium for a 17-year-old driver in northwest Omaha is $2,132 — twice what it would be if that driver were 21, and five times what a married 65-year-old male driver would pay.

So to save money, cash-strapped parents might delay when a teen gets insurance.

Fewer drivers in a household also means fewer dollars spent on gas. And driver's education isn't free. A 27-hour class with the Nebraska Safety Council in Lincoln runs $280. The Council Bluffs school district charges $370, though the fee can be reduced or even waived.

Ÿ Busy schedules. Some families find it difficult to squeeze in driving instruction amid sports and other activities.

Ÿ Fear. Car accidents claim more teen lives than anything else. Officials say driving — with busier intersections and roads accommodating higher speeds — is far more complicated today than a generation ago.

“Driving, myself, just seems terrifying,” said Ashley Brunkhorst, a 20-year-old Omahan with no license.

Brunkhorst has known people killed in car accidents and, feeling accident-prone herself, does not want to tempt fate.

“I'm perfectly fine being a passenger,” she said. “Just behind a wheel … I don't want the responsibility of having a two-ton vehicle that could potentially hurt or kill somebody or myself.”

Certainly Brunkhorst's fear has its root in accident rates that are especially high among teenagers, with the risk spiking during the first months of licensure, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, a national independent nonprofit organization. That group says the crash rate per teen mile driven is four times the rate for drivers 20 and older.

But crashes involving teens have dropped in Nebraska, tracking with more stringent training and licensing requirements for young drivers. There were 43 percent fewer accidents involving Nebraskans ages 16 to 20 in 2009 than in 1999, the year the graduated driver's licenses went into effect.

Nebraska transportation and safety officials see the dip in teenage license holders — and drop in teenager-involved car accidents — as proof that a graduated driver's license is having the intended effect of reducing the number of inexperienced drivers on the road.

“The longer you can delay them from getting a full license privilege, the better they're going to fare,” said Fred Zwonechek, administrator of the Nebraska Office of Highway Safety. The extra training requirements are important, too, he said. “Not only are they better drivers at 16 and 17,” he said, “but at 25, they're better. It follows them.”

Chris Knapp of Lincoln is content using two wheels, pedaling his bike around Lincoln.

“Driving's one of those things that makes me nervous,” the 16-year-old said. He plans to get his license “eventually.”

For Will Brueggemann of Omaha, driving isn't all that appealing.

“It seems like it's more work than fun,” he said.

He turned 15 in September but waited until March to get his learner's permit. This summer, he took a driver's ed class. He practices almost daily, driving home to Dundee from his job near 89th Street and Military Avenue when a parent picks him up at work.

But his lack of burning desire to get his license surprises his mother, Jana.

“I never remember having that,” she said. “I think a lot of it is there's more rules than when we were kids.”

A combination of reasons kept Hilary Pflug from rushing to get her license. One was two older siblings who waited.

But a bigger reason was that older sister Cally could shuttle Hilary to and from Omaha Duchesne, where they both attended high school. Just a year apart in age, the two had friends in common, and both were on the school's swim team.

“I didn't see why I would go get (my license) if she could drive me,” Hilary Pflug said.

The sisters were in an accident that didn't injure them but totaled their car and shook Hilary's nerves.

“I didn't want anything bad to happen to me or any passengers,” she said.

Her mother, Sue, gently pressed.

“She said, ‘I just don't want to drive,' ” Sue Pflug said. “You hate to push them if they're not ready.”

But as her 18th birthday approached, and with college around the corner, Hilary decided it was time.

“I might need,” she thought, “to take that next step in my life.”

Contact the writer:

444-1136, erin.grace@owh.com

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