Dunno. Gotta keep in mind: when I started in college, "fuel injection" was something that you didn't mess with. You could chip a modern car and make it go faster but a 350 with TPI was pretty much the shit. Fast forward 20 years and a buddy of mine is reliving his Landcruiser fetish and he's got yet another with a 327. Lo and behold, a 350 with TPI is still the shit. It's like car culture hit 1992 and just sorta stopped. I mean, even the ricers don't really go for modern rides anymore. The stupid stereo twits will buy something new and put eleventy seven LCD screens in it, but if you're actually dealing with the mechanicals you're probably working on a '98 Prelude. Presuming you're working on it at all. The kids aren't buying cars, and they aren't driving anywhere, so why would they give a shit?That is seriously shocking. Was that unusual at the time? I wonder what it's like now across the US . . .
I have noticed that I meet more and more people who say they don't drive, though I've wondered if that was merely an effect of meeting people in large cities. The concept of the self-driven car is appealing, especially if it could work as a kind of modular public transit, but I've got a feeling that such cars are a bit further off than the articles suggest.
I don't think it's the "driving" aspect so much as the "$20,000 and $400/mo in insurance just to be allowed to legally put the keys in" aspect. That and it's so much less of a tribulation to be stuck at home. Backintheday we found new bands by reading about them in magazines, then driving an hour to the music store to make a deposit, then driving back two weeks later to pick up our CD. Youtube is a definite improvement.
The laws are not so strict where I'm from, but I take your point. I love Youtube, but it bums me out that there are so many things that get in the way of frequent social interaction between people here. Plus, I always enjoyed going to the record store and just digging for whatever. I guess I don't have to deal with "holier-than-thou" record store employees anymore, just those bonkers comments sections.