LICENSED 16-YEAR-OLDS ARE DOWN NEARLY 27% SINCE 2000

The teen driver’s license lost ground with Gen Z, with the number of licensed 16-year-olds down nearly 27% since 2000, USA TODAY found in an analysis of federal data. The paper pointed to online connectivity, rideshare apps, public transportation, biking and driving anxiety as reasons many teens felt less pull toward the DMV.

The analysis, published May 17, 2024, used Department of Transportation Highway Statistics data on licensed drivers from 2000 to 2022. The 27% figure tracks one group, 16-year-olds with licenses, and not every teen in the country.

Going back further, the share of 16-year-olds with a license dropped from about half in 1983 to about a quarter in 2022. Among 18-year-olds, it slid from 80% to 60% over the same stretch.

USA TODAY said younger members of Gen Z, born between 1997 and 2012, were either skipping the license entirely or putting it off. Of the 21.4 million 15-to-19-year-olds in 2022, about 40% were licensed. In 2000, 48% were.

Gen Z is a small slice of the road

Only one in 25 licensed drivers in the country was 19 or younger. Drivers aged 24 and under made up about 12.4% of all licensed drivers in 2022, while the smallest group was people 80 and older, at 3.7%.

Generation X, born between 1965 and 1980, made up about 28.2% of licensed drivers. Millennials, born between 1981 and 1996, made up about 25.9%.

USA TODAY’s explanation for the drop started with technology. Teens can find community online and talk to friends whenever they want, and Lyft and Uber are now ordinary ways to get around. Some teens simply prefer public transportation or a bike.

Anxiety was another factor. The paper noted that The Washington Post reported in 2023 that road rage and aggressive driving were on the rise. USA TODAY said that hostility, combined with a mental health crisis among teenagers, could turn a classic rite of passage into something stressful.

The state numbers did not move in lockstep. Between 2012 and 2022, 19 states saw fewer teens applying for and earning licenses, and eight of them had drops of 20% or more. New York fell the most, with a 45% decline in young drivers.

Indiana went the opposite direction. Nearly 20,000 teens there had licenses in 2012, and by 2022 the number was close to 195,000.

For anyone who wants to dig in, the Department of Transportation keeps a public dashboard of licensed-driver counts by state, sex and age group.

A newer survey suggested the next crop of teens might be keener. The Livingston Parish News reported on a CarMax-commissioned poll by Wakefield Research, conducted online through email invitations with weighted data. Nearly half of the teens said they were very excited about driving, and about a fifth more said they were somewhat excited. About a quarter said they felt nervous.

The report, dated September 21, 2026, said 80% of surveyed teens already had a license or planned to get one as soon as they were eligible. Just 2% said they would not get one.

The government’s own numbers got a refresh on October 8, 2026, when the Federal Highway Administration updated its 2022 licensed-driver tables. The agency’s table lists 1,076,583 licensed 16-year-olds, or 24.9% of that age group, based on Census Bureau population estimates.