I agree. When you are several cars back there is no point. For most people it is force of habit I think.
I’ve had drivers play games with me quite a bit. Back in the mid-1970’s I had a Vega with 60 series radials. Not a fast car, but it cornered better than most. I had a guy in a GTO slow down and when I tried to pass him he would speed up. I finally laid about a quarter mile back and then accelerated to the point I was going about 30 mph faster than him. By the time he realized how fast I was going it was too late. I passed him. He rode my bumper right up to the next intersection, which I took as fast as I could. He ended up sliding across the road and embedding his car in an embankment on the other side of the ditch.
Less remarkable was the guy in the 64 Ford galaxy that, in downtown Renton, as he tried to follow me around the corner at speed, simply slid over the curb onto the sidewalk, took out a stop sign and ground to a halt in a parking lot on top of a couple of parking barriers, his front wheel laying on it’s side and steam everywhere.
Both cars were full of teenagers out to rase Cain. But then, I was a teenager too, but I just wanted to be left alone.
And frustration at car after car passing in the right and forcing everyone in the left to hit their brakes ...