Kerouac: Model for teen drivers?

A recent Huffington Post article bemoans the trend wherein less teenagers are getting a driver's license (click here). Fine. But then it invokes Jack Kerouac:

When Jack Kerouac finished his iconic book On the Road in 1951, the United States was surging with post-war optimism, and the automobile was its symbol for youthful independence, exploration and possibility. Acquiring a driver's license -- earning the right to drive -- became an important rite of passage for American teens, a way for them to launch off on their own toward a bright, if unknown, future.

Someone should break it to author Peter Weddle that Jack never got a driver's license.