Very true. I know at least two who resisted, one who is in his 20's and has never been behind the wheel (not due to health either).I was watching a lecture recently where the lecturer was illustrating the way kids and young adults are different nowadays. One of the big ways he made a point was to ask everyone over 40 (I may have some details wrong) to raise their hand if they got their driver's license at 16. The whole audience raised their hands. He said something to the effect of "When we were kids, you spent your 16th birthday at the DMV, getting your license."
Then he pointed out that kids nowadays are much less likely to care. They don't desire (or desire or value as much as previous generations) the personal freedom represented by being licensed to drive.
Interesting comparison, but it makes sense. Too many people hide themselves in technology, whether that's video games, online communities, or what have you.The love of cars is fading? Well, if you're incapable to speaking directly to a woman, how are you ever going to have the chutzpah to lay down strips of rubber in front of the school superintendents office? How are you ever going to appreciate the freedom and empowerment that automobiles symbolize?
A couple more quips about safety gear in cars. Many years back, one of the winters it was we got snow down here, the wife, kid and I were heading home to Katy from the in-laws on the SE side of town. It was late, probably 11pm or so, kid was asleep in the back and the wife and I were just cruising home noting all the cars wrecked at every overpass. People here aren't used to freezing temperatures, and thus aren't very skilled responding to what happens. Despite all the safety gear, all the active handling systems and auto braking assists, like clockwork they'd crest the overpass and react incorrectly when they felt the car get loose. The car I was driving (2004 Pontiac GTO) was equipped with only ABS and traction control, and the T/C was switched off. 50 mile trip home, and only once did we get significantly crossed up. Crossing the overpass on I-10 @ Barker Cypress or Mason, can't remember which, we got hit with a pretty good gust and we had to ride the back side of the overpass tail out. Had T/C been on, it would have detected the wheel speed difference and snapped the throttle shut. Snapping the throttle shut would have dragged the back tires, creating a much more difficult to control situation. Active handling systems would get it wrong here. You keep wheel speed as close to vehicle speed as possible, you stay off the brakes, steer where you intend to go, and wait for traction.
I now have a car that you can't effectively disable all these assists. The dash may say "off" but the system is never fully disabled. Case in point, I hydroplaned pretty hard while under power with all the active handling allegedly disabled. Immediately the "assists" kicked in, and instead of simply spinning the back tires faster it started grabbing the brake on the 'inside' front and 'outside' rear tire attempting to "correct" the steering wheel / yaw angle disparity. Not sure it takes a rocket scientist to understand what happens when you stop a wheel with low traction which then suddenly regains traction when the tire sets back down. That slight error turned into a major error pretty quickly. Took a pretty judicious application of driver steering inputs to keep the car off the curb. Without the computer applying braking the entire thing would have been quite uneventful. As an aside, Goodyear Eagle RS-A2's are terrible in the rain, and will float a 4400lb. sedan at 50mph on 1/2" of water.