@freemo
Budding pattern recognition perhaps? I did this too, sort of. It wasnt a man, it was at night, we had to reach each streetlight within a certain amount of time or the car would disappear. Or in daytime, each mile marker had to pass within a certain point or the car would disappear.

I think that was pattern recognition chained to anxiety because we were soooooo damn poor that having a car was an extreme luxury at the time.