Background Information
We started our search by using the Google search engine and typed in the phrase “car age statistics”. We found an article written by USA Today which stated that in July of 2011 the average age of vehicles on the road was 10.8 years old. In 2010, the average age of automobiles on the road was 10.6 years, and as early as 1995 the age of the vehicles was as low as 8.4 years old. http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/money/autos/story/2012-01-17/cars-trucks-age-polk/52613102/1 Although these statistics are years old, they are valuable because they demonstrate that the average age of cars in the United States is rising, and people are keeping their cars longer. Next, we searched “percent of teenagers with new cars” and Google gave us the “Forbes” website that showed different statistics for the cars parents allow their children to drive. Allstate conducted a study where 60% of parents surveyed say they have less money to spend on their kid’s cars these days. Additionally, the site found that almost 73% of teenage drivers own their own cars, but most of them are “beaters,” meaning used vehicles with a mean age of 9.3 years. http://www.forbes.com/sites/jimgorzelany/2012/03/27/the-best-used-cars-for-teen-drivers/ Both of these websites contributed to our topic as we learned that the age of cars on the road is getting higher, and less people are buying new cars; which also means many teenagers are expected to drive “beaters.”
Next, we looked up the website mentioned in the USA Today article called “Polk” which is where most of the data in that article came from. Upon finding this website we realized how valuable the statistics on it actually were, as it is a site full of statistics and observations about automobiles. The Polk website has a blog which led us to a post titled “Buick Goes Against Trend and Attracts Younger Buyers.” Although this doesn’t seem like it would be a helpful post for our search, it was. The blog included a graph of the percent of new car buyers by age category in both the years 2007 and 2011. We used the 2011 data since it is more recent. This graph helped us conclude that only 11% of new car buyers were people who are 34 years or younger. Additionally, the three age groups with the highest percentage of new car buyers are the groups 35-44 years old (22%), 45- 54 years old (26%) , and 55-64 years old (23%). They combined for a total of 71%.
http://blog.polk.com/blog/blog-posts-by-tom-libby/buick-goes-against-trend-and-attracts-younger-buyers Seeing as these are the ages of many teachers in our school, this could be very helpful. It was also helpful in showing that not many young people buy their own brand new cars, especially teenagers.
