The State - News from July 20, 1989

There were nearly 19 million licensed drivers in California last year, about 360,000 more than the year before, the state Department of Motor Vehicles reported. The agency said there were 18,934,147 licensed motorists in the state for the period ending Dec. 31, 1988, roughly a 2% increase over 1987. The DMV also said that nearly 24.7 million vehicles were registered in California during 1988, including about 16.3 million passenger cars. The year before, about 23.1 million vehicles were registered, about 15.6 million of them passenger cars. The figures represented the most recent period for which statistics were available.