I don't know how you can compensate for needle down if your machine doesn't have it. I would try to stop in a place where I was going to change direction anyway but it would be really tough to do smooth meandering.
Before I had adjustable speed on my machine, I found a way to limit how far down I could press the foot pedal. I duct taped a little piece of wood molding to the back of the foot pedal so no matter how hard I pressed on it, it would only go to medium speed. I don't know if you could do something similar on your foot pedal.