油价飙升，美国少年开车兜风一族在减少

As Gas Prices Rise, Teenagers’ Cruising Declines

Kevin Ballschmiede, 16, pined for his 1999 Dodge Ram — “my pride and joy” — the other night as he hung out in a parking lot in this town outside Chicago. Given that filling the 26-gallon tank can now cost more than $100, he had left it at home and caught a ride.

16岁的Kevin Ballschmiede渴望得到1999款道奇，“这是我的骄傲和趣所在。”某个晚上当他在芝加哥城外的这个小镇的一个停车场闲逛时，他说，现在要给这个26加仑的油箱加满油，得花费100多美元，他不得不把车停在家里而选择搭车。

From coast to coast, American teenagers appear to be driving less this summer. Police officers who keep watch on weekend cruising zones say fewer youths are spending their time driving around in circles, with more of them hanging out in parking lots, malls or movie theaters.

从各个海边来看，今年夏天驾车的美国少年比往年少了。在一些美国少年周末常来驾车兜风地带站岗的警官说，开车的美国年轻人少了，他们中更多的人在停车场、购物中心或电影院打发时间。

The price spike in gasoline, to an average of $4.07 a gallon for regular unleaded, is so recent that government statistics do not yet capture the teenage-driving trend. But the figures show that overall demand for gasoline is dropping. In dozens of interviews, teenagers and their parents said the price of gasoline was forcing hard choices on them.

汽油价格飙升，普通不含铅汽油每加仑均价达到4.07美元，因此近来政府统计部门还没有捕捉到少年们的驾驶倾向。但数据显示，汽油的总体需求量在下降。很多被采访的少年和他们的父母说，油价正迫使他们做出艰难的选择。

To be sure, the number of teenage drivers nationwide was already on a downturn over the past decade, a trend fueled by tighter state laws governing the hours when teenagers can drive, higher insurance costs and a move away from school-sponsored driver’s education programs to more expensive private driving academies.

不可否认，在过去10年中，全国范围内，青少年驾车者人数呈下降趋势，这个趋势是由于国家法律对少年驾车者可驾驶时间更严格的限制、更高的保险费用和由学校主办的驾驶教育课程转变为更为昂贵的私人驾驶学院等因素引起的。

These days, teenagers who do have licenses are not only driving less, but they are also having to come up with their own gasoline money. Any long trip involving a group of teenagers is likely to involve careful negotiation over who pays. And some teenagers are realizing that gasoline prices have put their dream of owning a car out of reach.

这段时间，持有驾照的青少年不仅开车少了，他们还不得不要努挣足自己的汽油钱。每一次由几个年轻人组织的长途旅行都会对由谁来承担油钱进行仔细协商。一些青少年意识到汽油价格已经使他们拥有一辆汽车的梦想变得遥不可及。

Tim Chou, 19, an engineering student at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, had to give up his gas-guzzling 1996 Nissan Quest.

19岁的Tim Chou, 是一名伊利诺斯州大学厄本那—香槟分校工程系的学生，他不得不放弃购买耗油的1996版尼桑贵士。

“My parents decided to donate my car to charity because they didn’t want to pay for the insurance and gas anymore,” Mr. Chou said. “I guess I’ll be doing a lot of car-pooling this summer.”

“我父母决定将我的车捐给慈善机构，因为他们不想再花钱买保险和汽油，”周先生说，“我想今年夏天我将要多参与拼车一族了。”

He was hanging out on a recent Friday night at a Starbucks with a group of his friends, and all of them said the price of gasoline, made worse by difficulty in finding summer jobs, was cramping their style.

最近一个星期五他和几个朋友在星巴克聚会时，他们都说汽油价格使暑假打工变得更难了，这改变了他们一贯的生活模式。

“I used to drive around and hang out here with my friends five nights a week last summer, but I just can’t afford to buy gas anymore,” said Elliot Lee, 19, another engineering student. Mr. Lee said that since arriving home in East Dundee, Ill., for the summer, he had withdrawn $100 from his savings account to pay for gasoline.

去年夏天我通常每周有五个晚上和朋友们在这里开车兜风和聚会，但我现在负担不起油费了。另一个工程学专业的19岁的Elliot Lee说,自从他回到伊利诺斯州东敦提的家度暑假以来,他已从他存款中支取了100美元用于购买汽油.

Perhaps the summer’s most visible change is occurring in the downtown strips of small towns where, for decades, cruising on Friday and Saturday nights has been a teenage rite of passage. It is a peculiarly American phenomenon — driving around in a big loop, listening to music, waving at one another and wasting gasoline.

或许今年夏天最显而易见的变化商业中心是附近的小镇,十多年来,一些青少年们星期五和星期六晚上都要在这里开车兜风,这已成为一个惯例.这也是一个特有的美国现象----他们围着一个大圈一边开车,一边听音乐,一边互相招手致意,浪费着汽油.

“We’re not cruising around anymore, with gas costing $4.50 a gallon,” said Ewelina Smosna, a recent graduate of Taft High School in Chicago, as she hung out the other night at the Streets of Woodfield, an outdoor mall in Schaumburg. “We just park the car and walk around.”

“我们不再绕圈兜风了,油价每加仑要4.5美元.” Ewelina Smosna说,她最过刚从芝加哥塔夫脱中学毕业.一天晚上她在一个位于伍德菲尔德Schaumburg的一条街上的一个室外购物中心逛街时说,”我们把车停下步行逛毛街.”

According to police officers in towns like Elkhart, Ind.; Grand Haven, Mich.; and Mount Pleasant, S.C., traffic has dropped markedly on cruise nights.

埃尔克哈特镇、大港、密歇和S.C.的愉悦山等镇的警察们说，现在（年轻人们开车）兜风晚上的车流量明显下降了。

“Teen cruising is way down from 2005, when it used to be bumper to bumper downtown,” said David Scott, a senior officer in Grand Haven, a popular resort town hugging the Lake Michigan shoreline. “Traffic downtown used to be so bad in the summer, you couldn’t drive faster than 10 miles an hour. Last Friday night, I didn’t even have to wait in line to get through a light.”

“过去在各闹市区壮大的年轻人开车巡游队伍从2005年以来不断下降，”大港的一个资深警官David Scott说,大港是密歇里根湖岸边一个受人欢迎的度假胜地。“过去夏天闹市区的交通状况十分糟糕，时速甚至开不过10英里。上周五晚上，我过红绿灯时甚至不需要排队就通过了。”

Summer cruising appears to be ailing even in Modesto, Calif., a town immortalized in the film “American Graffiti.”

夏天兜风的现象在Modesto, Calif.也在走向衰弱，Modesto, Calif.因电影《美国风情画》而名垂千古。

“I think it’s a pretty good observation that there is much less cruising in town this summer, and it has a lot to do with the gas prices,” said Sgt. Tom Blake of the Modesto police. “The kids are parking their cars near McHenry Avenue and congregating at the Sonic drive-in, the McDonald’s and the Starbucks.”

“我认为今年夏天兜风一族的大幅减少这是一个相当好地现象，有很多事要做来应对油价上升。” Modesto 的一个警察Sgt. Tom Blake 说，“孩子们以把车泊在迈克享利大道附近，然后快速进入麦当劳和星巴克集合。”

Around the nation’s dinner tables, meanwhile, parents — many of them struggling to pay for their own gasoline — are having heart-to-heart talks with their teenagers.

围绕在国家餐桌旁边的，同时，还有父母们，他们中的许多人正为支付他们自己的油费而努力奋斗—他们正和他们十几岁的孩子进行推心置腹的谈话。

Lorraine Demuccio, an administrative assistant from Mount Pleasant, said gas prices prompted her to urge her 18-year-old daughter, Annalisa, to turn down a summer job as a nanny.

洛林德幕克，欢乐山度假区的一个行政助理说，油价上升使她要求她18岁的女儿安娜莉莎放弃了一个当保姆的暑期工作。

The job “would have meant driving at least 20 minutes a day, each way, and then she’d be driving the kids to the pool and the beach,” Ms. Demuccio said. “She ended up taking a job at a day care center that she can walk to.”

这个工作“意味着每天来回都要开车至少20分钟，然后还要开车带小孩们去游泳和海边，” 德幕克说“她找到了一份可以步行到达的日间护理工作从而结束了那份工作。”

Margie Passias, a single mother from Palatine, Ill., said she was scrambling to find extra cash to hand over with the car keys when her two teenage daughters, Athina, 18, and Paulina, 16, clamor to drive her Chevy Tracker.

帕拉汀的一位单身母亲玛吉帕斯尔斯说，当她两个十几岁的女儿，18岁的Athina和16岁的Paulina强烈要求开她的Chevy Tracke时.她时不时要挣些额外收入以补贴车用，

 “I sat the girls down on the living room couch one night and told them, ‘the only solution this summer is car-pooling,’ ” Ms. Passias recalled. “I told them not to drive on a regular basis, but I’m still giving them money for gas here and there. And with my financial situation, it is really hard.”

“某天晚上，我让女儿们在起居室沙发上坐下，告诉她们，今年夏天唯一的解决办法是拼车。” 帕斯尔斯回忆说，“我叫她们不要像往常那样用车，但是我还是时不时给钱她们买汽油，但是以我的财务状况，的确非常艰难。”