The day my son turned 16, he was incensed that he could not go straight to the Illinois Secretary of State's office to get his driver's license.

His birthday fell on a Monday that year, and because the offices are open on Saturday, they are closed on Mondays.

But according to Time magazine, that big rush to get a driver's license as soon as a teen hits that magic number is no longer such a priority. It reports:

The number of teen drivers has dramatically decreased over the past couple of decades. In 1983, 69% of all 17-year-olds had driver’s licenses. By 2008, only half of 17-year-olds had licenses. What’s behind the big drop?

Researchers hypothesize that the rise of the Internet, text messaging, and other technology has made it easier for teens to connect with each other and socialize without the need of a car. The car culture of generations past has apparently been replaced, at least partially, by the e-culture of texts, Twitter, Netflix, iTunes, and Facebook.

The source was a study done by the University of Michigan's Transportation Research Institute.

The Time article doesn't touch on what I think could be another big factor -- money. A newsroom colleague has a son who just turned 16 and got his license. He said the cost of adding him to his family's car insurance is $1,000 a year.

Consider that, along with gasoline at $3 and more per gallon, wear and tear on a family car or -- in some cases -- adding a car for that teenager's use, and a teen driver can put a serious dent in a family's checkbook.

Will your teenager get a driver's license right away, or did they? If there was a wait, what was the reason? And how is that different from how quickly you got your license?