We have yet another article wondering why fewer people are getting drivers licenses these days:

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Young people are not getting driver’s licenses so much anymore. In fact, no one is. According to a new study by Michael Sivak and Brandon Schoettle at the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute, the percentage of people with a driver’s license decreased between 2011 and 2014, across all age groups. For people aged 16 to 44, that percentage has been decreasing steadily since 1983.

It’s especially pronounced for the teens—in 2014, just 24.5 percent of 16-year-olds had a license, a 47-percent decrease from 1983, when 46.2 percent did. And at the tail end of the teen years, 69 percent of 19-year-olds had licenses in 2014, compared to 87.3 percent in 1983, a 21-percent decrease.

Among young adults, the declines are smaller but still significant—16.4 percent fewer 20-to-24-year-olds had licenses in 2014 than in 1983, 11 percent fewer 25-to-29-year-olds, 10.3 percent fewer 30-to-34-year-olds, and 7.4 percent fewer 35-to-39-year-olds. For people between 40 and 54, the declines were small, less than 5 percent.

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Maybe it’s just that people today have more things they’d rather do than practice parallel parking between traffic cones. Or maybe it’s because the photos on those plastic cards are almost never flattering. Sivak and Schoettle are hoping to soon study possible reasons for the drop in driver’s licenses. But regardless of the cause, it seems that if you want to insult a teen today, shaming them for not being able to operate a motor vehicle might not be the way to go.

It’s not difficult to understand.

The FIRE (Finance, Insurance, and Real Estate) sector has been sitting athwart our economy sucking the marrow out of its bones for a very long time, and it appears that the insurance industry has finally reached a level where it’s breaking up America’s love affair with the automobile.

All in all, it’s king of a mixed emotions thing here.  The insurance industry and auto industry have both done a lot to f%$# up our country.

If only they could both lose.