No matter how long it took, or how much birthday money he would have to save, the 6-year-old South Carolina boy named Bell would spend his special day in “The Happiest Place On Earth.”

And, as local TV station reports, he was pretty close to realizing that dream, planning for a visit to Disney’s Animal Kingdom just in time for his seventh birthday this month.

Then he heard the story of the hurricane: how it transformed the Bahamas into the unhappiest place on Earth-and how it continued to chum up(搅动)the East Coast, leaving tears in its wake.

How could Bell dream of Disney World when so many others were living a nightmare? So the boy gathered his savings-and went to the grocery store. Instead of a romp(嬉闹)in Disney’s Animal Kingdom, Bell bought much-needed food and water for thousands of people forced to leave their homes in advance of the storm.

“The people that are traveling to go to places, I wanted them to have some food to eat, so they can enjoy the ride to the place that they’re going to stay at,” Bell told a reporter. Indeed, Bell made it hard for anyone to miss his offer. He pulled a couple of homemade signs to Highway 125 in Allendale with the words “Free hot dogs and water” on them. And he stood at the side of that highway, calling out to motorists, many of them tired and traumatized after leaving their homes behind. In all,he served more than 100 evacuees(被撤离者).

“I am very proud,” his grandmother Aretha Grant told CNN. “We knew Bell was very special, but we didn’t know he was special in this way, to be such a giver like this.”

Indeed, at his little stand in Allendale, Bell is giving people something much more precious than hot dogs. He’s offering hope-and along the way, the little boy with the big heart is making his own magic kingdom.

On my fourth day in a self-driving car, I finally felt comfortable enough to let it stop itself Before then, I’d allowed the car-a Volvo S90 sedan（轿车）to control the direction，with my hands still on the wheel, and to adjust speed in traffic. By Day 4, I was ready to make a jump into the future.

With the car traveling on a busy road, I activated the driverless mode. Soon, a traffic light turned red. For a split second, I prepared to get on the brakes. There was no need. The cameras and computers in the Volvo recognized the traffic conditions and smoothly began applying the brake.

If you’re anything like most people, you’re familiar with this anxiety. Almost 80 percent of Americans fear traveling in a self-driving car, a recent survey found.

Researchers at the University of Chicago have conducted some clever experiments studying the phenomenon. They asked participants to complete tasks and compared their performance with a computer system’s. After the computer made a mistake, people were unwilling to use it again. After the people made mistakes, their self-confidence wouldn’t change. It didn’t matter that the human beings made more mistakes than the computer. So it is with driving. More than 37,000 Americans died in crashes last year, most from human error. The death count from cars goes beyond that from guns. So if you are shocked and angry by guns and want things to change, you should feel the same about car crashes.

Technology creates an opportunity to save lives. Computers don’t get drunk or distracted（走神、分心）by text messages，and they don’t have blind spots. Just look at commercial airlines Automation has helped all but get rid of deadly crashes among American air carriers. The last one happened in 2009.

The technology for self-driving cars still isn’t good enough. But it is improving rapidly! Within a few years, many cars will have advanced crash-avoidance systems and driving will be revolutionized sooner than many people now understand.