The Next Decades
Page 39
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AKING generalities is one of the most facile, and potentially least-productive, pastimes ever devised. Just such a smooth generality is that so frequently uttered these days: " Road transport will be completely changed in five or 10 years' time." Perhaps this is true, perhaps it is not. One thing is certain: nobody can at this stage say empirically just what the future face of road transport will be. In any case, five or 10 years is hardly a sufficient period ahead to be seeking to form opinions. Twenty years, maybe, is much more the length of time ahead to which road transport should be looking. Is it? That is a question which has to be posed with a tinge of regret, because the answer is fairly obvious—" No ".
What will the operating scene be in 20 years' time? Road transport expects to be treated like a mature, responsible industry. Yet its practices are often "still rooted substantially in the 1930s. It might well be that really radical changes will occur in the next five or 10 years (although, short of political action, The Commercial Motor thinks this on the whole unlikely). If they do, it. will be that much harder to accept them for a traditionally based industry than one which has a more flexible outlook.
Lord Hinton's recently announced committee might alter things. Geddes might (though from Mr. Fraser's remarks over the past month or two doubts are beginning to arise as to whether this report will ever be published). A lot of other influences might arise. A closer link with the Continent would certainly alter things here. Better now to cultivate flexibility of mind than to force-grow it in 10 or 20 years' time.