Really? Was that in the 1920s or something? It does make sense.
When I was a young lad, there were all these old men driving with hats, at 35 miles per hour, gripping the wheel for dear life, on all those two lane highways, that are now largely gone. This was back around 1960. My dad called them fudds, as he zipped past them, in the other lane, and making caustic comments when passing was not possible. I assumed they learned to drive later in life.
60s.