In 1956, General Motors showed us what the future of traveling would be -in the far off year of 1976! Jet-powered cars would follow a magnetic strip to their destination on single-lane superhighways, all going about 30 miles an hour, guided by men in control towers, while the family sang songs. For some reason, they thought that a superhighway could have a "scenic route." The guy in the tower would even find them a motel room where they could get pre-digested food cooked by infrared! Yum!
Instead, by 1976, we had interstate highways in most places, but the speed limit was 55 mph, way below what the highways were designed for. After the oil embargo, gas was up to 60 cents a gallon! Then in 1981, President Reagan fired all the guys in the control towers. Now 67 years after this film was produced, we are starting to get self-driving cars, but they are controlled by computers and have yet to learn not to hit things. Route mapping by GPS is routine, but an ice cream freezer in the glove box was never something we were willing to pay for. -via reddit