That is the headline with which Automotive News’ Mark Rechtin begins:

You know that study that just came out declaring “the end of the driving boom,” because Gen Y supposedly doesn’t care about cars?

Ignore it.

The 69-page study by the Frontier Group and the Public Interest Research Group is just another case of inside-the-beltway thinking attempting to drive public policy decisions. Or using statistics to ignore the real causal evidence for why something is happening.

According to the study, “Young people aged 16 to 34 drove 23 percent fewer miles on average in 2009 than they did in 2001 — a greater decline in driving than any other age group. The severe economic recession was likely responsible for some of the decline, but not all.”

The study posits that millenials would rather Tweet than drive, and would rather live in an urban setting with mass transit than commute in from the suburbs.

When you read between the lines, the Frontier/PIRG study is a clear call for investing less in freeways and main arteries, and a call for more subways and light rail. …

But the biggest problem with the survey is its basic psychographic misunderstanding: Young people do care about cars. They just haven’t had to.

Either unemployed or underemployed, many Gen Y college grads have moved back home with their helicopter parents who have resumed their role as their childrens’ personal taxi services. Gen Ys can’t afford cars, but they can afford iPhones.

At some point, however, the economy will improve. Recent grads will get real jobs, have boyfriends and girlfriends, and realize that having mom chauffeur a date to see Vampire Weekend isn’t cool when you’re 25.

Then there’s the marriage factor. Even if millenials can afford that cool 600-square-foot artist’s loft close to the subway station, it won’t fit a family, and it’s in a cruddy, crowded neighborhood with a lousy school district.

Gen Y will enter suburban life — it’s a demographic certainty. Kicking and screaming, the last bohemians of Gen Y will realize the car has changed from being an unneeded luxury to an absolute necessity. …

The same day that the Frontier/PIRG study came out, Edmunds.com released its own findings about Gen Y buyers.

“With higher unemployment, lower income and a greater propensity to live at home than previous generations at this age, it hardly comes as a surprise that these younger adults have failed to buy new cars at the same rate as their predecessors,” Edmunds chief economist Lacey Plache wrote.

Rechtin points out that since 1956, vehicle miles driven have tracked growth, or lack thereof, in the gross domestic product. If driving is or has decreased, it’s because of the (still) crappy economy, with a major assist to gas prices nearing $4 per gallon once again.