I have seen the future, and it is L.A.
That is, L.A. traffic, which nowadays consists of permanent gridlock and rush hour.
But even as L.A. has stopped building roads, realizing that more is never enough - Mae West wasn't referring to HOV lanes, but her line is apropos - slowly emerging is the solution to traffic problems.
The future consists of self-driven cars, connected magnetically or electronically to a fast-moving, under-the-car or under-the-highway-surface computer-regulated transporter.
Your car, your motor, your comfort and DVD or cozy slumber-seat or whatever it is you want, moving at 80 mph, spaced a few feet from the cars in front of and behind you.
Sure, you can drive if you want, in old-fashioned driver-driven car lanes.
That is, if you don't mind accidents, crazy people, and getting there in twice the time.
With this new technology, we already have more than enough roads to take us anywhere as fast as we want to go, until the aircar comes into widespread use.
There are already stretches of freeway in San Diego and L.A. being retro-fitted for this radical new paradigm of personal transportation, and the car companies are readying their vehicles.
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