“If one has driven a car over many years, as I have, nearly all reactions have become automatic. One does not think about what to do. Nearly all the driving technique is buried in a machine-like unconscious. This being so, a large area of the conscious mind is left free for thinking. And what do people think of when they drive?”

“I can only suspect that the lonely man peoples his driving dreams with friends, that the loveless man surrounds himself with lovely, loving women, and that children climb through the dreams of the childless driver. And how about the area of regrets? If I had only done so-and-so, or not done such-and-such – my God, this damn thing might not have happened. Finding this potential in my own mind, I can suspect it in others, but I will never know, for no one ever tells.”

– John Steinbeck,
Travels with Charley
p.85 hdbk