After taking a driver’s education course in high school, I passed my state driving test and got a license. It was a high point of my teenage years. If a high school diploma was considered a ticket to success in those days, a driver’s license was a passport to the pursuit of happiness.

On prom night, there was no question about which document was more desirable.

Times sure have changed. Members of Generation Z, and the millennials before them, don’t seem nearly as enamored of the automobile as many of us baby boomers were as teenagers. They say cars are too expensive to buy and maintain. They say walking and biking are better for the environment. They swear by Uber or other forms of transportation.

But I suspect there’s also another reason for their aversion to cars. They don’t know how to drive.

“Four decades ago, 95 percent of teenagers in this country learned to drive in school-based driver’s education coursework,” said John B. Townsend II, manager of public and government affairs for AAA Mid-Atlantic’s Washington office. “Like a number of other school systems across the country, the District jettisoned its school-based driver’s education curriculum, as did the state of Maryland.”

According to the Federal Highway Administration, only 449 teenagers in the District had a D.C. driver’s license in 2014, the most recent year such figures were available. (There are an estimated 13,608 teenagers in Washington between the ages of 16 and 19 who are eligible to drive.)

[More teens are choosing to wait to get driver’s licenses]

Back in 2001, before driver’s education was dropped from the public school curriculum, the District had 10,917 licensed drivers 19 years old and younger. In 2014, among the 346 male teens and 103 female teens with a D.C. driver’s license was President Obama’s older daughter, Malia, who was taught to drive by the U.S. Secret Service.

Surely she isn’t the only teen who wants to drive a car.

Lucinda M. Babers, director of the District’s Department of Motor Vehicles, says the decision to drop driver’s education from D.C. public schools “resulted in many teen drivers, who make up most first-time drivers, being ill-equipped to safely navigate the roadways which require driving knowledge and skills, combined with sound judgment.”

The District uses a graduated licensing system for beginning drivers — starting with a learner’s permit at age 16, a provisional license at 16 1/2, and a full driver’s license with conditions at 17. First-time drivers ages 20 and older are exempt.

This kind of graduated licensing throughout the country may have contributed to a steep drop in driving fatalities involving teens. Over a 20-year span, from 1994 to 2013, the number of people who died in crashes involving teens dropped by 56 percent, according to federal data. Still, car crashes remain the leading cause of death among teenagers. And some jurisdictions are seeing a spike in fatalities among inexperienced 20-year-old drivers who avoided the graduated licensing system.

The earlier youngsters begin to learn the rules of the road, the better.

[America’s once magical — now mundane — love affair with cars]

On June 27, an estimated 14,000 District residents between the ages of 14 and 21 will start work in the city’s summer jobs program. If last year’s program is any guide, more than half will require transportation assistance to make it to and from work.

The city provided about 10,699 youths with SmarTrip cards loaded with $110. But with a year-long schedule of repairs to Metro just getting underway, many youths may wish they had the option to drive.

Getting a reliable used car doesn’t have to cost an arm and a leg. Neither would maintaining it — not if driver’s education and automobile mechanics classes were still being offered in public schools.

Bring back both courses.

Public schools in Fairfax, Loudoun and Prince William counties have driver’s education programs, and they are producing young drivers with impressive safety records.

“Our classes tend to fill out pretty quickly. The demand is there,” said Jard Shoemake, program specialist for driver’s education in Fairfax County public schools. (Virginia has 108,927 licensed drivers 19 and younger; Maryland has 63,775.)

“We go well beyond reading road signs and which foot to use when braking and accelerating. We discuss the effects of inertia, yaw, pitch and speed on control. How a moment of distracted driving becomes a tragedy. And you don’t leave without knowing how to parallel park.”

To hear some teen nondrivers tell it, texting friends and meeting up for a “group date” on a Metro subway car is more fun than riding in a car.

But maybe if we took the time to teach them how to drive, they might discover the freedom that comes with getting behind the wheel and hitting the road. And not waiting on Metro.

To read previous columns, go to washingtonpost.com/milloy.