The aggressive tailgaters are often weavers. If you change lanes, they may get even more annoyed because they were trying to pass you on the side you were signaling.
The passive tailgaters seem to be unaware of what a safe following distance is and tailgate whenever possible, making no attempt to pass when there is plenty of space in the next lane to the left.
@frazzled1 - I don’t understand tailgating drivers on twisty, hilly, rural roads. They always seem to be in pickup trucks, which you know do not maneuver well so it could end very badly for them!
I won’t go 15 mph over because that can get you a mandatory court date in many places. I tend to be good and watch signs because there are roads that go from 25-75 and I don’t want to get busted. I usually don’t drive faster than about 72 mph because the vibration makes me uncomfortable.
I’ve gotten speeding tickets for going 32, 27, and 34 - never for truly speeding. Be warned, all of NYC has a 25 mph speed limit, even 3-lane flat, straight, and uncrowded roads. The only exceptions are the highways.
Living in NJ it’s tough going above the speed limit because New Yorkers refuse to get out of the left lane 
Same in my area - the testosterone filled men in oversized pickup trucks are by far the worst. More often than not, they are aggressive, obnoxious drivers.
I like these too: (pays for itself in 25 minutes! Tell your state!)
And tell those country road tailgaters!
I follow the flow of traffic and then some if I can manage it. My husband (doG love him) always uses cruise control and allows a football field between him and the car in front. Drives me nuts. There have been times when I’ve made him pull over so I can take over and a stroke. I allow maybe ten feet between me and the car ahead and pass if that car’s speed is irregular. If I EVER drive at or below the speed limit, you are all welcome to just shoot me.
(In 45 years of driving, I have never had a ticket or an accident. Knock on wood.)
Ouch. That sounds awfully close in many driving situations. 
10, because speeding tickets (very expensive where I live) start at 11 over.
You are lucky not to have encountered an unemployed personal injury lawyer with a sore neck driving in front of you.
I wouldn’t follow another car by 10 feet in my driveway. Never took physics?
My son was driving our car last December when he slid on black ice, just down the road from our public works garage where the salting trucks are kept. 
The sheriff’s deputy said he could tell DS was driving slowly when the accident occurred. I sure wish they had salted a little sooner. Our car was totaled.
OMG I hope the 10 feet is an exaggeration!
If you are on an interstate or some out-of-the way road, fine, go for it, but if you are in my neighborhood going over the speed limit, it guess i wouldn’t actually shoot you, but I’d be tempted.
I hope that 10 feet is an exaggeration. It’s roughly the width of a parking space, and at 70mph, you would travel a touch over 100 feet in 1 second - I.e. almost zero reaction time.
I drive slower as I age it seems. I don’t live near an interstate, but highway travel, I’d say 5 mph over, maybe up to 10 if that the flow of traffic . I would rather leave 10-15 min early and be relaxed while driving. I never, ever tailgate. I know my reaction time is not great and I like my life.
Those twisty, turny roads are all we have in the county. I’m lucky to go 55-60 and in the dark, it’s slower. My eyes have a hard time adjusting when cars come the other direction, especially those stupid trucks which seems to be every other car here. I am thankful if I get stuck behind someone going slower than me! But I get the OP’s situation. In our area, there are so few places to stop and turn off and no shoulder at all. Try to move over and you might wind up in a ditch or hitting a tree.
A couple of years into my job, I realized that every single co-worker in my office (~10) either had a family teen member killed or involved in a fatal traffic wreck. This was before cell phones, but also before they changed some of the licensing requirements. It seems better now, though a couple of years back, a co-worker’s son was a passenger with a kid who went to school early, swerved to miss a deer and hit a tree. The kid had to hang upside down for >30 min waiting for medics next to his dead friend. I don’t care if people tailgate me, I’m not going faster than I feel comfortable.
My CDU classes often are about safety design. It is amazing the difference between traveling 15,25, 30 mph in a congested area with pedestrians. Your field of vision while driving is greatly reduced as you increase speed just a little. We also watched an infomercial being pushed somewhere overseas - maybe Sweden? It showed just how significant the difference in injury/death and damage would be in accidents if you just went 5 kmh (3.1 mph) slower. It was eye opening.
I was taught that you need at least a car length per every ten miles an hour you are driving. So 5 car lengths for 50 miles an hour. I try to keep that distance and it bugs me no end when people keep fill up the space in front of me. I generally try to drive the same speed as the rest of the cars in my lane, but in residential areas I really try very hard to keep under the speed limit. We’ve spent a lot of time on our neighborhood trying to get streets re-striped and create islands so that people are less tempted to speed.
Good image for why you don’t want cars racing through your neighborhood: http://www.urbanindy.com/2011/12/12/pedestrians-at-risk-in-our-cities/
Good article about street design: https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2019/1/8/new-20-mph-street
If 5 car lengths for 50 mph, that’s around 75 feet. Choatiemom can’t be serious with the 10 feet comment, at least while on the highway. Surely she’s just making the point that she is closer than most people would go. Still, that’s not a safe way to drive. Any way you look at it, that puts her legally culpable in the event of an accident.
From what I saw when I googled, safe distance is considered 3 seconds behind the car in front to give you ample time to stop if something happened ahead of you.
One car length per 10mph is about one second following distance. But that assumes good reaction time as well as assuming that the vehicle in front does not crash to a stop or changes lanes to unmask a stationary obstacle like stopped traffic.
Some actual numbers:
60 mph = 88 feet per second
Car length = 14 to 17 feet
Typical dry braking distance from 60 mph = 130 to 140 feet
Typical reaction time = 1 second (= 88 feet at 60 mph)
So from 60 mph with typical reaction time, you would need around 220 feet to stop. That is somewhat more than two seconds.
My car has the heads up windshield display. It projects information- your speed, direction, and how close to the car in front of you are- directly in front of you on your windshield so that you don’t have to look away from the road. Today, I drove 1.5 hours on the highway. In some places that were congested, being 100 feet behind the car in front of me at 75 mph was way too close, so I would back off. Inevitably, a car from the next lane would pull in front of me in the lane, so I’d have to back off more to feel like I wasn’t too close.
In MA if you are not passing, you do not belong in the left hand lane. 
I live by that rule. Move over to the right if you are not passing. On two lane roads where that is not always possible, if I have someone on my tail, I will pull into a a driveway, or on the shoulder it possible. I would rather have them pass me then on my tail. I don’t care what the speed limit is, I don’t want someone on my tail. Typically, I will travel as fast as the rest of the traffic. 10 or 20 miles over the limit, I don’t care, just so long as a I dont get a ticket.
@Massmom, my state as well. There are signs all along the major highways saying “Left lane for passing only.” But there are people who have the mindset “but I’m going the the speed limit, not under the speed limit. They don’t have the right to drive 85 in a 70, so too bad for them if they don’t like it.”
And that is absurd. If you are not passing the traffic to your right, you have no business being in the left lane, actual speed nonwithstanding. Watch a non passing left lane hogger. Before too long, cars around it start doing crazy stuff. They start tailgating. They whip around on the right going fast and cut in too short. Tempers flare and drivers get more aggressive. But it’s the left lane hogger who is the one creating a hazard. I don’t know if it was here on CC or somewhere else, but a college student posted that when people try to pass her, she speeds up “to make them work for it.” SMH…
Every once in a while I’ll see a news segment where police pull over slower left lane hoggers. While somewhat satisfying, it’s also frustrating that the person pulled over just doesn’t get it. They weren’t speeding, end of discussion. They’ve done nothing wrong.