Lena Dunham famously said, "I think that I may be the voice of my generation. Or at least a voice. Of a generation." The statement turned out to be more prophetic than expected: As previously mentioned, Gen-Z and younger Millennials are the least drive-savvy generation in modern history. And Dunham, like a hefty percentage of the generation that succeeded her, cannot drive. As a New York native, she likely never felt any need to get her driver's license. And now that she has made London, where public transport is readily available and traffic is rife, her second home, she has even less reason to learn.
But in an interview with Rolling Stone in 2013, she revealed the true reason why she never got her license in a quintessentially blunt Dunham manner: "I'm afraid of Rebecca Gayhearting a child." This morbid jibe is in reference to Gayheart accidentally hitting and killing a nine-year-old boy whilst driving in 2001. And almost a decade later, Dunham still can't drive. In 2021, she tweeted, "I may lack self-awareness but at least I know I shouldn't have a driver's license!"
If her semi-autobiographical show "Girls" is anything to go by, maybe it truly is for the best that Dunham can't drive. In the Season 5 episode "Homeward Bound," her character, Hannah Horvath, infamously caused a car crash after she decided it would be a good idea to perform a sex act on her pal in a moving vehicle.
