The open road: it’s part of the American dream. Or, at least, it used to be. A new study finds that 16- to 34-year-olds without driver’s licenses rose to 26 percent in 2010 from 21 percent a decade earlier. At the same time, biking, walking, and other driving alternatives rose among young people in the past decade. Tony Dutzik is a senior policy analyst at the Frontier Group and co-author of the study. Takeaway listener Emily is a 25-year-old who rarely drives, and didn't get her license until she was 19.

Around the world, driving is a common part of a woman's everyday life, but in Saudi Arabia, religious edicts prevent women from being able to practice this simple act—even though it’s not technically illegal for them to do so. Saudi women decided to quietly and peacefully revolt last Friday, by driving. Many drove their cars, or rode with other female friends who hold international drivers’ licenses; and they plan to continue doing so in the days and weeks ahead.

According to a Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association report roughly two trillion text messages were sent in the U.S. last year; that figure nearly doubles the number reported in 2009. In the past few weeks, texting drivers have caused deaths in Michigan, California, and Georgia, and to date, 33 states have outlawed texting while driving. The Takeaway asks whether text messaging really is as dangerous as critics say, and if so, is outlawing texting while driving the best solution?

What's your most or least favorite stretch of road? Everybody has one. Maybe it's two miles of straightaway splitting farming fields you drive with your truck, or a winding stretch through a forrest you traverse on your bicycle. Alternatively it could be a smog-choked creeping mass of metal along I-95, or a particularly harrowing entrance ramp to Highway 42 in Louisiana. As many Americans will be driving short and long distances this summer, hopefully to take some time off to relax, we want to see your picks for superlatives. Take a picture or send us a video...NOT while in the driver's seat. It can be of anything you want — technically even your driveway probably counts. We'll play your descriptions on the air and post them here to the website. 

As memorial day approaches, Americans are topping off their gas tanks and getting ready for a long weekend away from home. But with gas prices creeping up across the country, American travel patterns are beginning to shift accordingly. For just over a week now, The Takeaway has been asking listeners to text us the price at their local pump. We’ve collated the information on an interactive map. In this conversation we discuss some of our findings with Andrea Bernstein, Director of the Transportation Nation project and senior correspondent for our flagship station WNYC.

WNYC's Transportation Nation recently discovered that the U.S. Department of Transportation has proposed a new rule for long-distance truck drivers. It would require truckers to install a device to monitor the number of hours they drive per day. DOT regulations state that truckers cannot work more than fourteen hours per day — and they can only drive eleven of those fourteen hours. Advocates of the digital monitor worry that drivers violate these rules and simply lie in their handwritten logs. But most long-distance truckers aren't too happy with the new DOT proposition. Harley Helms, long-distance truck driver and Takeaway listener, has had a such a device installed by his employer. He joins us with his take on digital monitors.

Why isn't there a better way to text while driving? That’s a question that Joel Johnson, editor at large of Gizmodo.com asked in a recent column.

So far, he’s received over 500 responses to his column, most of which suggest that people who text and drive should simply give it up, use the phone instead, or die behind the wheel because they deserve to. However, Johnson insists that, in a world where most people text and drive, his question is valid. If we can't stop it, why not make it safer?

What do you think? Should texting while driving be outlawed or be made safer?

Eben Erickson makes his living off of that yellow line that stretches down the middle of the highway. However, this year, his livelihood may be threatened. His company, Road Runner Striping, usually spends spring repainting the stripes. However a shortage of an essential component of road paint that may mean less income for businesses and compromised safety for drivers.

We’re still getting responses to the conversation we had last week about "Driving While Distracted." Since that segment, the Obama administration banned all federal employees from texting while driving, and calls are growing for a nationwide ban. We hear some more of what our listeners had to say.

The hot topic on our show and across the country this week was "Driving While Distracted." Yesterday, the U.S. Department of Transportation said almost 6,000 deaths last year were connected to driver distraction. They proposed some solutions, including a push for states to pass their own laws. You’ve been sending us your own ideas on this problem, which we cover this morning.

One listener, Anthony from Watchung, N.J., emailed us to say: “There is a BlackBerry application called "Color ID" which flashes a sequence of colors. I use this for important people who send messages. If it's cyan and purple, I know I need to check the message right away and look for a safe place to do so. Otherwise, I ignore the message.”

Yesterday we asked how often people do things like texting and talking on the phone while driving. Listeners weighed in all day, suggesting solutions to combat DWD ("Driving While Distracted") and responding to 19-year-old Alicia Jones, who admitted on the air yesterday to texting while driving.