Old Lady Alert

I enjoy driving and I've been driving for a very long time. Therefore, I've developed some habits that other drivers find irritating. Extremely irritating, apparently. Many drivers today can't bear to see a space, no matter how small, between two other cars. So even though I'm keeping pace with the car in front of me, unless they seem to be practicing for the Indy 500, I do leave some space for stopping. The problem is that when I learned to drive, eons ago, the standard rule was to leave one car length for every ten miles of speed between you and the car in front of you. This was drilled into me by the driver's manual, the Driver's Ed instructors at my High School, and a Disney animated short about safe driving featuring Goofy. In reality we never did exactly that--I mean, even back then the idea of all the cars on the highway being spaced six or seven car lengths apart was laughable. I assume the makers of the driving rules calculated in a fudge factor, knowing most people would cheat a bit. Cars have much better braking systems now. In comparison, the brakes on the cars of the 60s and 70s seem like the equivalent of opening the door and dragging your foot on the ground. But I continue to believe that some room is required to stop safely. I just can't trust that my wonder-brakes are going to stop my car, which is going 70 mph, in the available 6-1/2 feet. So I continue to annoy many of my fellow drivers. They aren't doing a lot for my peace of mind either.