Los Banos Rotary Club History
Predicts Changes In Ground Transportation

A verbal picture of America's future ground transportation system, based on current technical and engineering studies, was given to members of the local Lions and Rotary Clubs Tuesday by Douglas M. Fitzgerald, of San Jose. Fitzgerald is public relations representative for the National Automobile Club.
Gauging his predictions somewhat on the assumption that this country will continue on its current high level of prosperity, Fitzgerald said the time is fast approaching when the United States will become a country of 3-car families, with two cars considered as almost a necessity.

Stating that the automobile has made its biggest strides since World War II, the speaker said the advances in the next 5 years will mostly center on the effort to provide more safety in travel, better brakes, stronger bodies, increased horsepower for increased maneuverability. Generally the new cars will be lower, slightly smaller, with new stronger body and roof materials. He predicts that with the next ten years the average car will have a total height of 4 ft. 3 inches, with Plexiglas roofs that will let in the light but filter the heat out.
Regarding engines, Fitzgerald predicted a 25 to 40 per cent increase in horsepower within the next ten years, with new smoother power transmission units. Fuel injection engines will eventually take over, primarily because they will eliminate the carburetor and air cleaner, thus enabling the designers to further reduce the height of the car. Further in the future he sees the gas turbine engine as the successor of today's V8. Now too expensive for mass production, further improvements will make them practical, with greater gas economy and performance.

Sealed transmissions and all bearings are soon to come, he said, to be greased once at the factory and then forgotten for the life of the car.
The speaker sees an increased trend to the use of the seat belts and further padding of the interiors for increased protection in accidents. The American Medical Association has declared that if all motor vehicles were equipped with safety belts highway fatalities would be cut by no less than 50 per cent.
Construction of new highways to match the new cars will lag behind, despite the federal government's current aid program. In the state some 41,000 miles of inter-state highway must be built to new standards to commensurate with the new cars to come. Today, he said, California has 11 per cent of the nation's cars and we account for 10 per cent of the highway deaths. The new federal program allocates to California only about 6 per cent of the total appropriation.

The speaker was introduced to the two local clubs by A. P. Machado, local National Automobile Club representative.

September 27, 1957

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