It’s not often that government statistics about teenagers are good news, but this is one of those rare times. In just-released government data, it seems that far fewer 16-year-olds are driving now than in years past.

Can I get an “Amen”?

According to the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Highway Administration, only 30 percent of eligible 16-year-olds got their license to drive in 2008, compared to 44 percent in 1988. That means that in the last 20 years, the percentage of licensed 16-year-old drivers has gone way down.

I think that’s excellent news, but then it’s kind of personal for me. Ten years ago, a 16-year-old driver – licensed for just three weeks – rear-ended me and my family as we tried to turn into our own driveway, totaling our vehicle.

But why are far fewer 16-yearolds driving? A Washington Post article last week postulated that the drop in teen drivers indicates that getting a drivers’ license is not the be-all and end-all for teens that it was in decades past, largely due to their ability to hang out with friends online.

“A generation consumed by Facebook and text-messaging, by Xbox Live and smartphones, no longer needs to climb into a car to connect with friends,” the Post article said. Plus, kids have so many other things to do now, and with years of being shuttled to sports, lessons and shopping, they’re used to being driven. Contributing to the drop, too, may be the economic impact of breathtaking insurance rates for new teen drivers.

Graduated state licensing systems like Georgia’s, which have put new requirements for learner’s permits, driver’s ed, supervised practice and night driving, and restricting passengers in the car, may also be responsible for much of the decline in the number of licensed 16-yearolds. Statistics show those new rules are saving lives, both among teens and among other drivers.

It wasn’t that way back when I got behind the wheel. It was unthinkable to me not to get my learner’s permit at 15 and my license the very day I turned 16. My father, to his great credit, had trained me hard and mercilessly, talking at length about what he was doing and seeing as I watched him drive through traffic. “Watch this guy,” he’d say. “He’s not looking. Look for the eyes, don’t trust a stop sign or a traffic light to stop a fool.”

That didn’t keep me from making a rookie mistake on my driving test. After successfully navigating blocks of big-city traffic and perfectly parallel parking my mother’s oceanliner sized Ford Country Squire station wagon, the state trooper said I’d passed and told me to pull back around to the start. Well, I pulled out without looking, and almost got creamed by a city bus. The trooper promptly failed me and told me I’d have to try again, since I’d almost killed us both. Some things you learn the hard way.

So the government figures are reassuring. Now, far fewer kids are taking their youthful enthusiasm and blind ignorance on the roads, entertaining themselves at home and preferring to let their electrons do the traveling. That’s fine with me.

And parents, remember that you are the final arbiter of whether or not your 16-year-old is ready to speed through the streets in two tons of steel. It doesn’t matter what the state of Georgia or the calendar says, they should drive only when you judge them to be capable and responsible.

Remember, the life you save may be their own.