Your Kids Aren’t Going to Learn to Drive

Did you learn to ride a horse?

Waymo’s new Teen Accounts in metro Phoenix let 14-year-olds summon a driverless car, no adult onboard.

Kids who are ~5-10 today will treat a driver’s license the way you treat a saddle. Riding a horse is charming, and a hobby for a few enthusiasts, yet it is no longer a tool for daily mobility. The same path is set to unfold for human driving: fun as nostalgia, optional as a life skill.

If that sounds far-fetched, ask yourself whether you’ve become the grandparent who once dismissed personal computers as pointless.

Children absorb new tech faster than anyone else. Ninety-six percent of Americans aged 18-29 own a smartphone, versus just 61 percent of those over 65. The same gap is emerging with cars: only about 40 percent of 16- to 19-year-olds held a license in 2021, down from 64 percent in the mid-1990s.

Driverless rides flip errands and commutes from wasted time into free time. For kids, that means safe independence and an on-demand chauffeur who doesn’t nose in on their conversations. For parents, it means no more twice-daily runs to soccer practice, no arguments over radio stations, and a calendar suddenly cleared of shuttle duty. Even Waymo’s own marketing leans into that promise of “free time for parents.”

There will be a momentary pang the first time you buckle your eight-year-old into a car with no grown-up up front. It will pass about as quickly as the guilt you felt when you first handed them an iPad on a long flight. Convenience has a way of shifting our sense of acceptability.

So yes, you will keep the family minivan in the driveway for weekend trips and perhaps the nostalgic joyride, just as stables keep horses for trail rides. But expect driving lessons to become like saddle lessons: optional, quaint, and destined to be a hobby, not a necessity.

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