Cruise Control – tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap …

Once on vacation, I was standing next to a 200-pound man who had recently had a double knee replacement. He began to fall and I caught him, steadied him. Shortly afterwards I returned to my hotel to pack (to fly home), and found my back going into spasm. We had to drive from Tucson to Phoenix to catch our plane. It hurt horribly to press down on the brake or the accelerator pedals. I got on route 10, got up to 40 mph and switched on the cruise control. For that long drive (110 miles), whether in traffic or not, I used the cruise control for all my speed changes, even anticipating well enough to avoid braking. Speeds varied a lot, from 35 up to 75. I did it all by dinking those little buttons, and saved myself a lot of agony.

Some weeks later I asked a nurse who was 6’4”, strong and heavyset: “How do you catch a person who starts to fall down?”
“You don’t!” she replied. “You could get hurt if you try to catch them. Let them fall!”