This isn't an America problem, as such, I don't think. In Germany, everywhere that doesn't have pretty good public transportation, i.e. everywhere outside of the 30 largest cities and 5 other ones or so, will learn to ride and use a bike a lot. A large swath will, at 15 where it becomes legal to ride a motorized scooter (Vespa, not Kickscooter but Electric) will do that, finances allowing, with priority to spend your money to get anywhere getting bigger the less viable a bicycle gets, i.e. if you live in a village 10km away from all the other children or so.

Then at 18, finances again permitting, shift to drivers license and car.

This is a cultural thing, sure, but it's carbrain. I mean individual transportation is great. I'd rather get rained on on my bicycle than wait 15 minutes extra trip time for the bus. I'll get dry, I'll not get the time back. The problem is the best individual transportation for nearly all options, because the world is built as such, is car. The Dutch cycle a lot because it's convenient, not because their brainpans are different or whatever.

You get the other carbrain, of course, which is taking your car to pick up a carton of milk, 500m away. That's because so many trips are better done by car that the idea of buying a bicycle just seems more of a hassle, not worth it. This is why you can't just incentivise people to not use the car, you have to actually punish them for using car if you wanna turn this shit around.

The other thing about this is that for children, being unable to operate cars in a car-centric world, chance of death is still preferrable to the imprisonment that comes with having no options for individual transportation.